Jun 15 2005
BP Solar has announced the expansion of its two photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing facilities located in Tres Cantos and San Sebastián de los Reyes near Madrid. The company plans to invest approximately 28 million Euros in the projects, enabling it to better meet the growing demand for PV systems in Europe.
The extension to the BP Solar plant in Tres Cantos will comprise the construction of a new 20 MWp (MegaWatts Peak) manufacturing line for photovoltaic solar cells. This expansion, which began in the first quarter of this year, will take around 18 months to complete and involves an investment of approximately 24 million Euros.
Once commissioned, the total output from Tres Cantos will be increased from currently 30MWp to around 50 MWp of photovoltaic solar cells.
The new solar cell manufacturing line will use state-of-the-art “Screen Print” technology. The project will also include adding additional services infrastructure to accommodate another 20 MWp of capacity.
Expansion of the San Sebastián de los Reyes plant
The expansion plans announced also involve the module assembly plant at San Sebastián de Los Reyes. This manufacturing facility which assembles solar cells into panels currently has a capacity of 25 MWp per year which will now increase to 50MWp. This will involve an investment of 4 million Euros and the project is due to be completed during the first quarter of 2006.
The assembly plant at San Sebastián de los Reyes will be highly automated and include the latest ‘touch-less’ soldering techniques.
“These new lines represent another step forward in the development of the photovoltaic market in Europe, led by Germany with around 300 MWp installed in 2004 and Spain which is forecast to at least double in size in 2005” said Charles Postles, BP Solar’s European Regional Director.
The expansion of BP Solar facilities in Spain is part of the company’s global manufacturing strategy to more than double current manufacturing capacity to reach the target figure of 200 MWp by 2006, as announced previously.
BP Solar has manufacturing facilities in India, Australia, the United States and Spain, where it has been operating since 1982.
BP Solar currently manufactures three types of photovoltaic solar technology cells and modules:
- polycrystalline
- standard monocrystalline
- SATURN, high performance monocrystalline
These three technologies are critical to BP Solar’s strategy to reduce the costs of electricity generated by harnessing the sun’s energy and bring the price to grid parity.
This new Screen Print technology has the capacity to process and manufacture monocrystalline and polycrystalline cells. This will provide greater flexibility to meet market demand and the economies of scale expected from each technology.
http://www.bp.com/
Posted15th June 2005