North Macedonian – German consortium to build solar panel factory in North Macedonia

German company AE Solar and North Macedonian PiKCELL Group are planning a joint investment in a photovoltaic panel factory in Tetovo. The start of production is scheduled for March.

North Macedonia–based PiKCELL Group announced on Facebook that it would build a factory for the production of state-of-the-art photovoltaic panels in the Technological Industrial Development Zone (TIDZ) in Tetovo with German company AE Solar.

The construction is planned to begin in October, and the plant should start production as early as March. The factory in North Macedonia’s western part will create 200 jobs, according to the firm headquartered in Skopje.

PiKCELL Group revealed the factory would produce panels composed of multi-junction solar cells of the “latest technology with a 23% efficiency” and that the production capacity would reach 1 GW annually.

PiKCELL Group is a high-tech company for the development and production of monocrystalline and polycrystalline photovoltaic solar modules and photovoltaic thermal modules. The annual production capacity of its existing plant, spanning 4,000 square meters, is 250 MW, according to its website.

The company was established in 2018. One of its founders is Prime Minister of North Macedonia Dimitar Kovačevski.

AE Solar was launched in 2003 in Königsbrunn. The company’s portfolio comprises over 3,200 installations in more than 95 countries. It has factories in Europe and Asia, and the largest single-roof production unit in Europe, located in Georgia, with a capacity of more than 1 GW per year.

The German company announced last year that it would invest EUR 150 million in the construction of a solar panel factory near the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv and that it would open a plant with a capacity of 1 GW per year in Kayseri, Turkey.