Industrial Investment Council (IIC) helps international photovoltaic firms invest in eastern Germany

In recent news, the IIC played an important role in First Solar’s decision to build a 100MWp solar module manufacturing plant in Frankfurt /Oder, Brandenburg state, with €45.5 million of German government financial incentives. I suspect the IIC was also involved in Nanosolar’s decision to locate its first panel assembly factory, designed to produce more than one million solar panels per year, near Berlin, Germany.

Both First Solar and Nanosolar will have a ready and robust German market for their photovoltaic modules. Germany is the largest photovoltaic market in the world with €3 billion in 2005 sales and forecasted annual growth of 30%+ per year. Solar photovoltaic system adoption is driven by the German Renewable Energy Sources Act which established guaranteed 20 year feed-in tariffs (the price utilities must pay for solar electricity) to insure investment payback.

Established in 1997 by the German Federal government and the east German states, the IIC acts as an intermediary between investors, industry, and federal, state, and local governments. Best of all for investors, the comprehensive suite of IIC value added consulting services are free of charge to international companies. [Don’t tell McKinsey or Bain about this.]

Also, the IIC website has great competitive information about the German photovoltaic industry and the PV tooling industry in the Downloads, Key Industries section.

Beyond photovoltaics, the IIC can assist with many key east German industries, from Aerospace to Wind Energy. Besides Berlin, local IIC offices support international companies in Washington, Detroit, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Paris.