Project financing for Enel’s 3SUN photovoltaic Giga Factory
Creating the largest solar panel factory in Europe
Large-scale renewable energy sources will be crucial in the transition to Net Zero. In February we signed a financing agreement for up to €560 million for the expansion of 3SUN’s solar panel plant in Catania, Sicily – which will become Europe’s largest high-performance photovoltaic module factory.
3SUN is an Enel Green Power company. The factory’s production capacity is set to increase 15-fold from the current 200 MW/ year to 3 GW by July 2024. The project will promote the latest generation of high-efficiency solar technology in Europe and help reduce the continent’s energy dependence.
We are pleased to have made a decisive contribution to the success of this deal, which will provide our country with a high-tech production facility of a size that will help to significantly reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. In 2022 UniCredit generated €11.4 billion in new green and sustainability-related loans. For UniCredit, sustainable finance is essential to support the energy transition, providing concrete solutions to accelerate the journey of our customers and the communities in which we operate towards a more equitable and sustainable future. With Enel, we are part of the CEO Alliance, the action tank in Europe that is driving the decarbonisation and digitisation of the continent through targeted collective initiatives. This operation further demonstrates the tangible benefits of our collaboration on different levels.”
Group Chief Executive Officer and Head of Italy
We are proud to continue supporting the Enel Group, this time in Italy, and we are pleased to do so together with UniCredit for the expansion of Italy’s largest solar panel factory. A strategic initiative that will contribute to the reduction of our country’s energy dependence, developing domestic production in a high-tech sector and increasing employment in the Sicilian territory. This intervention is a new concrete step forward consistent with the objectives of the Insieme 2025 industrial plan and confirms our commitment, for a total of 3 billion euros in green guarantees in 2022 alone, in the implementation of the Green New Deal to support investments by Italian companies in technologies for the ecological transition."
CEO of SACE