• Client: CARBON Solar SAS

• Location: Grand Port Maritime de Marseille, Fos-sur-Mer – France

• Site Footprint: ≈ 60 hectares on the harbour’s brown-field zone

• Planned Capacity: 5 GW cells & modules / year by 2027; roadmap to 20 GW across multiple sites by 2030

• Value Chain: Ingot • Brick • Wafer • Cell • Module – full vertical integration

• Jobs Created: > 3 000 direct positions by 2027, plus equal indirect jobs

• Milestones: Company founded 2022 → pilot line 2024 → gigafactory inauguration 2025

Europe installs more than 40 GW of PV every year, yet almost every high-efficiency cell still arrives by ship from Asia. Founded in 2022, CARBON Solar SAS set out to flip that equation and restore European sovereignty in solar manufacturing. Its flagship move is a fully electric, vertically-integrated gigafactory on a 60-hectare brown-field parcel inside the Grand Port Maritime de Marseille at Fos-sur-Mer. The deep-water berth brings quartz, graphite and glass fibres straight to the gate and lets finished modules load directly onto Ro-Ro vessels—cutting logistics emissions before the first panel leaves the line.

The initial build targets 5 GW of cells and 3.5 GW of modules per year, with commissioning slated for late 2025 and full ramp-up throughout 2026 – 2027. A 500 MW pilot assembly line, due in autumn 2025, will de-risk tooling and workforce scale-up one year ahead of the main plant. From day one the factory will run n-type TOPCon and IBC architectures, backed by CARBON’s pledge to reinvest 3 % of annual turnover in R&D to stay at the cutting edge of cell efficiency.

Economically the project is a €1.5–1.7 billion bet on French re-industrialisation, expected to create more than 3 000 direct jobs and the same number of indirect positions across Provence. Phase-one success should unlock a wider rollout: CARBON has already mapped a path to 20 GW of combined European capacity by 2030, positioning France as a central hub in the EU’s 30 GW domestic-production goal.

Sustainability is baked into the design. The plant taps France’s low-carbon electricity mix, uses closed-loop water systems, and commits to on-site recycling of slurry and diamond-wire offcuts. A parallel hydrogen-pipeline initiative (HyNframed) is also in development to feed future high-temperature cell processes inside the port ecosystem.

In short, CARBON’s Fos-sur-Mer complex is more than another gigafactory; it is a strategic anchor for Europe’s clean-tech autonomy—delivering local jobs, resilient supply chains and next-generation solar products at industrial scale.

• Owner’s Engineering – Independent oversight from feasibility sign-off to lender reporting, ensuring ESG, HSE, and EU taxonomy compliance.

• Basic & Process Engineering – Complete process flow, 3-D master layout, clean-room zoning, utility sizing, and SCADA/MES interface design for the ingot-brick-wafer-cell-module lines.

• Vendor & Specification Package – Equipment specs, BOM lists, and tender dossiers covering furnaces, wire saws, wet benches, diffusion, metallisation, and high-speed module assembly.

• Risk & Schedule Control – Gate reviews, CAPEX/OPEX benchmarking, and constructability analyses that de-risk the 2025 start-up target.

• 5 GW integrated capacity in Phase 1 (cells + modules)

• 20 GW combined capacity goal by 2030 across multiple EU sites

• 60 ha harbour-side campus with direct container berth

• > 3 000 direct jobs and matching indirect employment by 2027

• 100 % electric plant design, optimised for France’s low-carbon grid mix

• N-type focus: TOPCon & IBC products planned from day one