Spain to spend hundreds of millions of euros supporting renewable energy component manufacturing

The Spanish government has launched a new programme offering 480 million euros to support the manufacture of components for renewable energy. The funding will be provided through the economic recovery and resilience programme. In addition to facilities producing solar panels and wind turbines, the support will also go towards battery and electrolyser manufacturing. The new programme follows an earlier one that offered more than 200 million euros for the manufacture of components for solar power plants.

European developers of renewable energy and related technologies, such as battery storage, often rely on components imported from other countries, particularly China. Against a backdrop of rising geopolitical risks and, more recently, the possibility of a global trade war, there is also growing discussion about greater European self-sufficiency in manufacturing components for renewable energy and batteries.

However, increasing manufacturing capacity in Europe will require substantial investment, which the new programme is also intended to support. Spain’s Ministry for Ecological Transition has now announced one such programme. According to PV Tech, it will be divided into two sub-programmes. The first will offer a total of 35 million euros for projects with budgets of between one and thirty million euros. The remaining funds will go to projects with budgets exceeding 30 million euros.

On average, individual projects will be able to receive support of up to 15% of eligible costs, with the maximum grant for a single project set at 150 million euros. The maximum support, both in absolute and relative terms, will depend on the size of the applicant company and the region where the project is carried out. Small and medium-sized enterprises will therefore be eligible for more support than the average 15%.

According to the publication, the new programme follows the earlier RENOVAL programme, under which 210 million euros has already been allocated this year. The funding will support seven projects manufacturing components for solar power plants. Almost all of it—200 million euros, to be precise—will go to Sunwafe, which plans to build a wafer factory with an annual production capacity of 20 GW by 2030. The remaining funds will be shared among other European companies, including to support solar panel manufacturing.