Industry & Policy
Siting, energy costs, raw materials and recycling for wafer, solar and chip manufacturing in Europe.
- Critical raw materials and silicon: what the EU Critical Raw Materials Act means for wafers and chips
Why silicon metal, gallium and germanium are strategic raw materials in the EU, what benchmarks and permitting rules the Critical Raw Materials Act sets, and how recycling of production scrap fits in.
- Industrial electricity prices in the EU: how they are measured and how to read them
How Eurostat measures electricity prices for non-household consumers, what the consumption bands and price levels mean, why wholesale and retail prices differ, and what that implies for energy-intensive wafer, solar and SiC production.
- Land and buildings for a wafer or chip plant: cleanrooms, ultrapure water, grid connection and zoning
What a site must provide for a semiconductor fab or a solar wafer and cell plant: cleanroom classes under ISO 14644-1, ultrapure water, power supply and grid connection, hazardous substances, and the EU rules on environmental assessment, industrial emissions and major-accident hazards.
- Recycling solar modules and wafer-production waste in the EU: WEEE rules and the circular economy
How the WEEE Directive covers photovoltaic panels, which recovery targets apply, what changed in 2024, how modules are dismantled, and where circularity sits in wafer and semiconductor production.
- Siting wafer, solar and chip plants in Europe: the Net-Zero Industry Act, the Chips Act and the practical criteria
What the Net-Zero Industry Act and the European Chips Act actually offer a new wafer, cell, module or chip plant, how they differ, and which practical site criteria decide where such a plant can be built.
