Brussels, 26/05/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 21 May, the European Commission opened an indepth investigation into public funding of over €35 million aid to the solar energy investment project of the joint venture EverQ GmbH, in the German Land of Saxony Anhalt. The Commission has concerns that the current aid is in fact part of a single investment project, which has already received State aid. According to the EU rules on regional aid to large investment projects, if this proves to be the case the current proposed aid would need to be substantially reduced.
EverQ GmbH is a joint venture of three equal partners, Evergreen Solar Inc., Q-Cells AG and Renewable Energy Corporation ASA, active in the solar energy sector. EverQ already benefited from regional investment aid, including an SME bonus, for its first plant (EverQ1) set up for the integrated production of photovoltaic modules. The new aid relates to a second solar modules plant (EverQ2).
The Commission's 2002 Multisectoral Framework on regional aid for large investment projects, known as MSF 2002 (see IP/02/242), sets out the conditions for granting aid for large regional investment projects. It includes a progressive reduction of the regional aid ceiling for very large projects, because these suffer less from typical regional handicaps than smaller projects. If, according to MSF 2002, the measure for the construction of EverQ2 forms a single investment project with EverQ1, the scaling down would apply to the combined investment and therefore the planned amount of aid for EverQ2 would need to be substantially reduced.
At this stage of the enquiry, the Commission has doubts as to whether EverQ1 can be considered as a separate project from EverQ2 because of the physical and temporal proximity of the two projects. The work on the construction of EverQ1 started in 2005. In 2006, the work for EverQ2 was launched on land adjacent to the EverQ1 plant. (O.L.)