The 3Sun Gigafactory Story: With a broad-shouldered giant

Episode 3 Everything was going great at the 3Sun Gigafactory in Catania. We were churning out thin-film photovoltaic modules at full speed and we were making great strides towards the benchmark of manufacturing 5 million units. In 2015, though, clouds started to appear on the horizon. The photovoltaic market was experiencing a slight decline, and we feared that it might have repercussions on a business that was still as young as 3Sun Gigafactory: after all, we’d only been around for five years! The most pessimistic people were actually afraid that our adventure would end there. For me, it was like reliving shades of the past all over again. I was 43 years old and I’d just left a very negative experience behind me: I’d grown up working in a highly specialized metal manufacturing plant that produced material for semiconductors. In 2009, however, the company shut down and we were all laid off. It was a severe loss for Sicily, both in terms of jobs and skills: some colleagues went to work in northern Italy, others decided to settle for lower skilled jobs, while others (including myself) remained unemployed. I stayed home and envied even the commuters who were stuck in traffic! When I was hired at 3Sun Gigafactory in 2010, I was over the moon: not only would I be going back to work in a factory, but one that made solar panels, which is the epitome of sustainability! For someone like me who has always worked in the procurement sector, the social aspect of sustainability is also important: for instance, at 3Sun Gigafactory we’ve always been careful to avoid purchasing products made with forced labor. And now, just five years later, everything seemed to falter. Luckily, 3Sun Gigafactory underwent a major change at that time, and it was a significant adjustment. On March 6, 2015, Enel Green Power stepped in as the company’s sole shareholder and we became a fully-fledged part of the Enel Group. At that point, we felt safe: we were protected by a broad-shouldered giant. It was wonderful, discovering the new company, getting to know new people, learning new things from them and establishing a human connection with them, too: even though I was older than most of my colleagues, I can say that I’ve developed real friendships with many of them. It was a big change for me, even in my day-to-day work. The vendors we used to work with were often small local businesses that didn’t have any experience dealing with large multinational corporations and their processes; so we had to take them by the hand and accompany them every step of the way right up to the contract. Introducing them to this new context was great; it was a mutual exchange that benefited everyone and strengthened Sicily’s entrepreneurial fabric. Becoming part of Enel also had some comical twists. Up until that point, few people outside the photovoltaic sector had even heard of us; even in Catania, many people just knew 3Sun Gigafactory as one of the many factories located in its industrial district. Instead, “Enel” was a magic word that everybody knew. Even so, they often displayed very little understanding of the situation: some acquaintances started contacting me when they were having problems with their power bills or to get an estimate for solar panel installation on their roof. Me, who was actually in charge of purchasing at the thin-film module factory! Another major change took place just two years later. This time, it didn’t concern the shareholding structure but production itself. The solar market had recovered and had been growing steadily; everything seemed to be moving along a well-established path. And then, in a surprise move,3Sun Gigafactory’s management decided to completely renovate the factory, abandoning thin-film technology, which was still by far the most commonly used around the world, in favor of more innovative models. For me it was an exciting new challenge: new suppliers, new materials, and lots to learn. Change has always been an important value, both for Enel and for me, and I’ve always enjoyed continuous learning. The very last thin-film panel rolled off the production line on October 25, 2017: in those six years, we manufactured a grand total of 6.8 million panels. And now a new story has begun.

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The 3Sun Gigafactory Story: With a broad-shouldered giant

The 3Sun Gigafactory Story: With a broad-shouldered giant

Daniela Percipalle

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