EU finance Convert Italia to reduce production costs
A research project (GPOV, Global Optimization of Integrated Photovoltaic System for low electricity cost) to develop a photovoltaic system able to produce electricity for low costs and which is able to reduce 40% of payback period of the investment. This project is going to be pursued by Convert Italia S.p.A, Italian society operative for 35 years in the field of energy, for which it has obtained a loan of 1,4 million Euro from the European Union.
Based on latest market analysis, solar power is going to become the cheapest electricity source in a lot of world areas, with costs which are going to vary between 4 and 6 Euro cents per kWh/year (kilowatt-hours per year) in Europe within 2024. At the moment it has been achieved 2,2 Euro cents per kwh/year for the accomplishment of a photovoltaic system of 800MW at Abu Dhabi in 2019.
"This market growth represents "“ says Giuseppe Moro, president and Chief Executive Officer of Convert Italia "“ a good opportunity for European operators, who have been threatened in the last few years by significant investments in this field in China and in South-East Asia. This research project GOPV it is arranged in order to go back to being the main world protagonists with high technology efficiency and highly competitive especially in the private users market and create a strong synergism among European players.
This project, which is going to last 4 years, it is going to speed up the decrease of electricity costs to implement state-of-the-art functions in the system and creating synergism thanks to 5 areas: managing of light, energy efficiency, efficiency of materials, reliability of the system, configuration and maintenance of the system. The electricity costs are going to be reduced up to 50% (at the moment are 0,04 Euro per Kwh) and the payback period of investment should decrease to the 40%. The project is going to have a life cycle of 35 years for the photovoltaic strings instead of the standard 25 years.
At the end of this project (GOPV) the 6 partners, taking advantage of results, are expecting to earn an overall turnover around 48 million Euro (in 2022) which could increase up to 680 million Euro in 2027, with a perspective of more than 2.000 workplace between 2022 and 2027.
In 2016 Convert went up to the fourth position (HIS Markit source) in the world rank of tracker producer, technological component of the support unit of the module which allows to place photovoltaic panels in a perpendicular way following sun position during the day. Convert is the only Italian society which is participating to this rank. The Company is appointed of the patent for his flagship product, the Tracker TRJ, a uniaxial structure which turns by means of engine and specific electronics control, "following" the sun, obtaining an higher yield of 25% compared to the photovoltaic system with a support unit of the panel that is fixed.
