The recently signed contract has an order value of 9.872 million euros, to be paid by Midsummer Italia to Midsummer AB. The two machines have already been assembled at Midsummer’s factory in Sweden and are in the process of being shipped to Italy where they will be installed at Midsummer Italia's new factory in Bari and are expected to start producing solar cells by the end of the year.
Besides producing Midsummer’s range of standard thin film solar cells, Midsummer Italy intends to use the machinery also for R&D projects aimed at increasing performance of the cells as well as developing special-purpose solar cells for space applications.
Midsummer’s DUO manufacturing equipment is used to mass-produce solar cells. For advanced research, an upgraded version of DUO is used which, among other things, enables even greater variations in processes due to greater flexibility in the choice of process gas and more frequent temperature readings. Process improvements confirmed by Midsummer R&D DUO can be directly applied to the Midsummer DUO production system. It is this upgraded R&D DUO that Midsummer Italia has now ordered, to be followed by orders for a number of standard DUO’s later this year to eventually reach the annual 50 MW production capacity.
In October last year, it was announced that Midsummer Italia has been awarded incentives of approximately 38 million euros, in the form of grants and soft loans by Italy’s investment institution Invitalia, to establish a manufacturing facility for light and discreet thin film solar roofs in Bari, including the purchase of several R&D DUO and DUO ready-made production systems for the mass production of durable, flexible and cadmium-free thin-film solar cells (CIGS) with a minimal CO2 footprint.
The grants and loans are part of Italy's 'Recovery and Resilience plan', which covers a total of just over 190 billion euros from the EU.
The production capacity at the Italian factory will be 50 MW per year which will make Midsummer Italia the largest producer of thin film solar cells in Europe. The factory is expected to commence mass scale production by the end of 2022.
Italy has very favourable subsidies for the installation of solar cells for homeowners, over 100 percent, which allows property owners to install solar cells on their houses at no cost. Midsummer Italia has already closed three deals with Italian roof manufacturers/installers and building materials distributors for 15 MW of the 50 MW annual production capacity at the Bari factory.
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