en.Wedoany.com Reported - The French startup Carbon has announced the abandonment of its heterojunction solar module gigafactory project in southern France. The company's founder stated that due to the European regulatory framework failing to provide sufficient market protection for European-manufactured products, this industrial plan, once listed as a "Project of Major National Interest," has ultimately been shelved.
Carbon announced plans in early 2023 to build the factory in Fos-sur-Mer, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of southern France, with full production originally scheduled for 2025, and applied for a building permit in 2024. The project was designed with an annual production capacity of 5 GW of solar cells and 3.5 GW of photovoltaic modules, with an estimated investment of €1.5 billion. Once completed, the factory would have become a flagship project for reshoring photovoltaic value chain segments in France.
The founder pointed out in a statement that building large-scale industrial plants is a necessary condition to achieve globally competitive cost levels, but such projects require a protected European market, supported by EU member states, to help navigate the industrial scaling-up phase and absorb the additional costs of initial startup. However, the European regulatory framework has never provided such predictability.
The statement indicated that the Net-Zero Industry Act, adopted in June 2024, limits its objectives to supply chain diversification and does not grant any preferential treatment to European-manufactured products. Furthermore, the Industrial Acceleration Act of March 2026 extends the concept of "Made in Europe" to all countries that have free trade agreements with the EU, potentially covering Turkey, Vietnam, and India, and postpones the implementation of European preference policies until 2030. Investors required clear regulatory guarantees to finance the project, but it is currently impossible to foresee when such a market will emerge.
Before the project reached an impasse, its promoters attempted to adjust their strategy, including considering building a smaller-scale factory first to assemble modules using cells imported from China, and subsequently exploring a partnership with Chinese manufacturer LONGi, but these efforts failed to save the Carbon project.
Two major module manufacturing projects are still progressing in Europe. HoloSolis is building a 5 GW annual capacity cell and module gigafactory in Hambach, France, considered one of the largest factories in Europe; in Spain, Sunwafe is developing a large-scale ingot and wafer factory in Asturias, supported by European public funds.
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