Enel Green Power has inaugurated the new production line of its 3SUN factory to manufacture bifacial photovoltaic panels based on heterojunction technology (HJT) that combines amorphous and crystalline silicon. The President of the Region of Sicily, Nello Musumeci, the Mayor of Catania, Salvo Pogliese, the Head of Enel Green Power, Antonio Cammisecra, and the Head of 3SUN, Antonello Irace, started up the factory’s production.

This event completes the technological conversion project for 3SUN’s 2.0 factory. The project was launched in the second quarter of 2018 and was broken down into three stages, with the aim to make Enel Green Power’s “La fabbrica del sole” (The Sun factory) capable of producing on a continuous cycle, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, turning out about 1,400 panels a day for a total of about 500,000 a year.

Bifacial photovoltaic panels have an efficiency of more than 20% and a nominal power of 400 W. The “bifacial” feature will allow solar radiation to be captured also from the rear surface and achieve more than 30% greater energy production. In addition, while the previous modules had a life cycle of up to 25 years, the new panels are durable enough to last more than 35 years, with a high performance even in extreme weather conditions.

This technological leap will allow the plant in Catania to achieve a nominal production capacity of about 200 MW per year and to become the most automated photovoltaic production plant in the world with more than 300 employees and spillover business employing more than 600 people. The goal is to be able to overcome the theoretical limit of silicon efficiency in the next five years, thanks to constant technological innovation, and to achieve more than 28% of efficiency.