Kyocera helps Italy expand its solar footprint

Japanese solar-cell manufacturer Kyocera has supplied about 6 megawatts (MW) of multi-crystalline silicon solar modules for a large-scale solar power plant near Turin, Italy.

It’s Kyocera’s largest installation in Italy, with 13,920 215-watt modules and 12,900 high-power 235-watt modules at the plant. Operated by Italian company, ENERMILL Energies Rinnovabili s.r.l, the plant should last for at least 25 years, generating enough electricity for well over a thousand homes.

Kyocera has also shipped a further 50 MW of solar modules for three other large-scale power plants. These facilities in Spain (Dulcinea, 28.8 MW; Salamanca, 13.8 MW) and Thailand (Korat, 6 MW) have all actually exceeded the installers’ own original power output estimates.

The scale of solar power plants now sprouting up across Europe demonstrates that solar can be applicable on a utility scale in the future. Although 5- to 10-MW systems are now becoming the norm in places such as Spain, Germany and Italy, the UK will be lagging far behind due to massive reductions in support from the government’s feed-in tariff policy.

Elsewhere, solar power plants are even larger, with the current record held by a 97-MW solar plant in Ontario. First Solar, however, is now pushing to build a 2-gigawatt plant in China.  This, along with a 204-MW project in Thailand supplied by Kyocera, demonstrates the scale of solar power plants now being built across the globe.

As government subsidies are cut across Europe for solar PV, the market is expected to see lower growth than last year. The Asian and North American markets, though, are likely to see further rapid growth.

The development of large-scale solar power plants helps to reduce costs, as manufacturing capabilities improve along with economies of scale. As long as further work continues in research and development of the technologies, solar photovoltaics should have a bright future.