Hevel Solar Brings 1st Full-Cycle PV Module Manufacturing Facility In Russia Online

Hevel Solar — a leading solar energy company in Russia — recently launched the first full-cycle solar photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing facility in the country.

The facility — which is located in the town of Novocheboksarsk, in the autonomous republic of Chuvashia — is slated to manufacture roughly one million solar PV modules a year, possessing an annual manufacturing output of 130 megawatts (MW).

Worth noting upfront is that Hevel Solar’s investment in the manufacturing facility has been around $325 million.

Something else worth noting, the thin-film solar module production approach in use at the facility is reportedly based on the application (via spraying) of nano-layers — apparently resulting in a roughly 200-fold decrease in silicon use, thereby lowering costs as a result.

Hevel Solar has also made the claim that the solar modules produced at this facility will be better suited toward generating electricity in cloudy weather than conventional ones. Interesting. Considering that the broader region (Eastern Europe, and Europe in general) does get cloudy regularly and has very grey winters, that would certainly be a useful trait.

The vast majority of the solar modules produced at this facility will be used in the development of utility-scale solar projects in Russia — in particular, those located in remote regions that are currently dependent upon the grid via relatively far off generation capacity.

As it stands, Hevel Solar is currently set to construct at least 500 MW of such projects by 2021.

The company also recently made the announcement that it had decided to increase the planned generating capacity of a project currently under development in the Rostov region to 53 MW, up from the previously planned 30 MW. Along with the increase in planned capacity, costs will of course rise as well — in this case from $48.7 million to $81.2 million, according to the director general of the Rostov Region Development Agency.

Image Credit: Hevel Solar