(Alliance News) - Enel Spa announced on Monday that 3Sun, an Enel Green Power company, UniCredit and Sace will work together on the expansion of the Catania gigafactory, which will become Europe's largest high-performance photovoltaic module factory.

3Sun and UniCredit, which acted as Structuring Mandated Lead Arranger, Global Coordinator and Bookrunner, signed the project financing agreement for a maximum amount of EUR560 million, divided between EUR475 million senior term loan and EUR85 million VAT loan, to finance the expansion of 3Sun's solar panel factory in Catania, Sicily.

The investment will contribute to the development of TANGO - iTaliAN pv Giga factOry-, an industrial-scale manufacturing facility for the production of innovative, sustainable, high-performance photovoltaic modules at 3Sun. In line with the agreement, the expansion of the factory will result in a 15-fold increase in its production capacity to 3 GW per year from the current 200 MW. The 3 GW production plant is expected to be fully operational by July 2024, after starting with the first 400 MW in September 2023, making 3Sun Europe's largest gigawatt-scale factory producing high-performance double-sided PV modules.

The senior term loan, Enel explains in a note, "benefits for 80 percent from the Green Guarantee of Sace, the insurance-financial group specializing in supporting businesses and the national economic fabric, which thus confirms itself in the forefront of the implementation of the Green New Deal in Italy."

The company, which is directly controlled by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, can in fact issue green guarantees on domestic projects that can facilitate the transition to an economy with a lower environmental impact, integrate production cycles with low-emission technologies for the production of sustainable goods and services, and promote initiatives aimed at developing a new mobility with lower polluting emissions.

The factory is expected to increase direct and indirect local employment by about 1,000 jobs by 2024, serving as a catalyst for the revitalization of a European photovoltaic value chain and contributing to the reduction of the continent's energy dependence.

Francesco Starace, chief executive officer and managing director of Enel, commented, "The solar module factory we are building in Catania will be at the forefront of innovative technology and industrial process automation and will contribute to the EU's goals of 40 percent energy consumption from renewable sources by 2030, as well as help reduce energy dependence."

Andrea Orcel, ceo of UniCredit, added that "this transaction will enable our country to have a high-tech production facility of a size that will help significantly reduce dependence on fossil fuels. With Enel, we are part of the ceo Alliance, the action tank in Europe that is driving the decarbonization and digitization of the continent through targeted collective initiatives. This transaction further demonstrates the tangible benefits of our collaboration on different levels."

Alessandra Ricci, CEO of Sace, called the project "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," he concluded, "is a new concrete step forward consistent with the objectives of the Insieme 2025 business plan and confirms our commitment, for a total of EUR3 billion 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.

On Monday, Enel trades in the red by 0.5 percent to EUR5.38 per share; UniCredit is down 0.7 percent to EUR18.62 per share.

By Chiara Bruschi, Alliance News reporter

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