The first part of the plant, known as "Carbon one", will be the first component of Carbon's gigawatt production plant with an annual module capacity of 500MW.

The company's gigawatt plant will be built in Fos-sur-Mer, near the great maritime port of Marseille. When put into operation at the end of 2026, it will become the largest photovoltaic manufacturing plant in Europe.

Carbon One will serve as a pilot for the company's long-term plans and a commercial accelerator to achieve its production goals. The pilot factory will produce 1 million PV modules per year and employ 200 people in construction and operation.

Carbon announced the latest news at the Choose France economic summit in Versailles earlier last week. Carbon unveiled its plans earlier this year, but adjusted its timeline. In March, Carbon said its gigabit factory would be fully operational in 2025, but now it says the massive factory will be operational "by the end of 2026."

PV Tech Premium interviewed Carbon last year. At the time, a company spokesperson confirmed that the Gigabit factory would initially focus on producing TOPCon, but that the company was open to investing in "stacked technology" in the future. Carbon has announced a series of production news in the TOPCon field, following the construction of the first factory of its kind in the United States by Vietnamese company Boviet Solar. This is one of the few positive developments for European manufacturing.

Earlier this year, Johan Lindahl, secretary-general of the European Solar Manufacturing Council, told PV Tech Premium that a lack of manufacturing capacity in Europe and an oversupply of cheap Chinese-made products meant the industry could be "on the verge of losing the entire European PV manufacturing industry", sparking controversy Doubts about the long-term health of European manufacturing.

Previously, French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire called on photovoltaic buyers to "large-scale adoption of 'Made in France' modules." As part of a plan to significantly develop French photovoltaic manufacturing, the commissioning of large-scale module production plants like Carbon will be a way to achieve this. The key to planning.trina solar panels