Senegalese solar power company SPEC is establishing the first solar panel production line in West Africa, with the support of overseas technology partners.
Africa is a sun-drenched continent with a massive number of people who do not have access to mains grid electricity. The situation offers a home-grown solar industry an excellent opportunity to provide clean, renewable energy and generate green jobs for the region.
SPEC, supported by Swiss company 3S Modultec, will be installing West Africa’s first integrated solar module production line in the next couple of weeks, with view to producing solar panels by June of this year.
The panels will be certified by the German agency TÜV Rhineland and distributed in local markets.
The 15MW solar panel production line can be expanded to 25 MW and has been matched to local requirements, combining automated and semi-automatic production stages. Experts from 3S will be assisting the local SPEC team on-site and monitoring the project throughout the planning, ramp-up, production launch and certification stages.
SPEC is no stranger to the solar power industry, having a technology and innovation centre specialising in solar energy for the development of major projects.
3S Modultec is a subsidiary of Meyer Burger Technology AG and manufactures integrated module production lines up to 130MW, offering a cycle time of as little as 45 seconds per module. 3S Modultec merged with Meyer Burger Technology AG, Baar last year, forming what it says was the first global technology group in photovoltaics that covers all critical technologies in the entire value chain, from silicon to solar panel.
