Solar company SMA has opened its new Gigawatt Factory in Niestetal near Kassel. The plant will build energy systems for large-scale projects, and by the company's own account is one of the biggest production investments in its history.
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Now up and running, the plant's output will span central inverters, battery storage solutions and energy management systems for photovoltaic, storage, hydrogen and data-centre projects, as well as hybrid energy systems. At full capacity, it is expected to reach an annual output of more than 60 gigawatts, says SMA.
€80 million invested across 46,000 square metres
The site covers a plot of 46,000 square metres, roughly the size of six football pitches, including 20,500 square metres of production hall space. Total investment amounts to around €80 million, roughly €50 million in leasing expenses and €30 million for production infrastructure and equipment.
""The Gigawatt Factory is our investment in the industrial capabilities needed for the energy systems of the future. It strengthens our ability to deliver critical energy infrastructure worldwide and underlines our clear commitment to technology, value creation and production in Europe," said Kaveh Rouhi, CFO of SMA Solar Technology.
Not your average ribbon-cutting
Representatives from industry, politics and the defence sector attended the opening, with panellists including Herbert Diess, chairman of the supervisory board of Infineon Technologies, Ben Hodges, former lieutenant general of U.S. Army Europe, Walburga Hemetsberger, CEO of SolarPower Europe, and Nikolaus Valerius, CEO of RWE Generation, a high-profile line-up for a factory opening and a sign of how seriously energy infrastructure is now treated as a security question.
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"The Gigawatt Factory is more than a new production facility, it is SMA's answer to the worldwide growing demand for reliable energy infrastructure," says Florian Bechtold, Executive Vice President for Large Scale & Project Solutions at SMA, mirroring the growing scale and complexity of customers' energy projects. "The Gigawatt Factory gives us the scale, flexibility and manufacturing expertise we need to support this growth." (nhp/tf)
