Solar module factory to resume production in Portugal

From pv magazine Spain

Lux Optimeyes Energy is investing some €5 million in a new factory in the southern Portuguese city of Moura that will manufacture flexible photovoltaic solar panels and lithium batteries.

The factory will occupy the facilities of the old Moura Solar Factory (MFS), owned by Acciona and ProJinko, which was active for 10 years before shutting down production in September 2018 and closing permanently in January 2019, leaving 105 people unemployed.

The group of investors behind the Lux Optimeyes Energy consortium and the municipality, located in the region of Alentejo region in the country’s Beja district, last week signed the lease for the former MFS fab and a memorandum of understanding for the execution of the project. Portugal’s Minister of Environment and Climate Action João Pedro Matos Fernandes and the Undersecretary of State and Energy João Galamba attended official start of the project.

Lux Optimeyes Energy is owned by Portuguese tourism sector group Lux, led by Rui Torrão and Paulo Torrão, and energy industry veteran Miguel Matias, former director of innovation at Galp Energia and founder of London-based Self Energy Group as well as fellow UK company Optimeyes Energy.

The total investment is estimated at about €5 million, of which €2.96 million were provided by the local government through the Alentejo 2020 regional funding program.

The new factory, which is expected to begin operation by the end of the year, will create more than 40 direct jobs in Moura, most of them for former MSF employees, and another 200 indirect jobs in the promotion, sale, development and installation of the solutions to be manufactured.