Company heads of 13 leading European solar organizations have urged the European Commission to call for action to boost investment in the continent’s solar photovoltaic (PV) industrial base and reinforce the Commission’s solar deployment and energy security ambitions.

They want the commission to extend financial support for large-scale manufacturing projects and competitive operating expenditure support, particularly for energy-intensive polysilicon, ingot, and wafer production.

The CEOs from companies such as SolarPower Europe, First Solar, BayWa r.e., Wacker Chemie AG, and Iberdrola Group were the signatories to the open letter submitted earlier this month.

Referring to the recent IEA Special Report on solar PV supply chains, the signatories raised concerns regarding the dominant concentration of supply chains being cumulated in a single geography. The report revealed that global solar PV manufacturing capacity has increasingly shifted over the last decade from Europe, Japan, and the United States to China. China was found to have invested over $50 billion in new PV supply capacity – ten times more than Europe − and created as many as 300,000 manufacturing jobs across the solar PV value chain since 2011.

To ensure Europe’s participation within a globally diversified solar supply chain, signatories called on the commission to replicate the success of the European Chips Act, which works towards boosting Europe’s competitiveness and resilience in semiconductor technologies and promoting solar PV production in the National Resilience and Recovery Facility (RRF). The RRF helps the EU achieve its climate neutrality target by 2050 and sets Europe on a path of digital transition, creating jobs and spurring growth in the process.

Pointing at these global developments in solar PV manufacturing support schemes in the U.S. and India, the signatories called on EU leaders to build on the continent’s leading solar energy research legacy.

The United States Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) benefits for OPEX and CAPEX resonate with investors, leading to accelerated investments. According to a report by Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will help the United States solar market grow 40% or add 62 GW of additional capacity over baseline projections through 2027

The letter also welcomed the recently announced REPowerEU plan while highlighting the international measures adopted by other countries which are increasing the global competition for solar PV value chains outside of Europe.

Through its REPowerEU plan, the Commission intends to make Europe independent from Russian fossil fuels before 2030. The plan also proposes an EU Solar Strategy, under which the commission intends to double its solar PV capacity by 2025 and install 600 GW by 2030.

In June this year, energy storage company Fluence Energy and nine other energy market organizations also wrote to European policymakers to rethink the structure of European energy markets and the REPowerEU plan. In a letter, they outlined why Europe needs a rapid rollout of technologies to increase grid flexibility and strong targets and policy frameworks to encourage the near-term adoption of these technologies.