Sharp Corporation and Italy's largest power company, Enel SpA will establish a joint venture to operate as an independent power producer with their own facilities to generate electric power for sale to utilities and end users.

The two companies plan to develop a number of photovoltaic power plants with a total capacity of 189 MW by the end of 2012 at an investment of around ¥100 billion yen between 2009 to 2010.

They will set up photovoltaic power plants mainly in southern Italy and will utilise thin-film solar cells, which they said offerred superior power generating efficiency in hot-climate regions.

In the future, the two companies are looking into expanding their power production business to cover countries of the Mediterranean region.

Sharp and Enel will rope in a third European manufacturing partner to join in the venture to produce thin-film solar cells, at a solar cell plant in Italy. The plan envisages the plant to expand annual production capacity for generating 1 GW of power some time later. The initial phase of development will put in place a production system having an annual capacity of 480 MW, to start operations around the middle of 2010.

The three companies are working out the details of establishing the joint venture to manufacture thin-film solar cells in Italy, and plan to sign a memorandum of understanding in December.

Geographically, Italy lies at the heart of a project adopted at the Union for the Mediterranean (a 43-country community of consisting of all 27 EU member countries along with 16 non-EU countries in the Middle East and Africa that border the Mediterranean Sea) summit held in July 2008, called ''Mediterranean solar plan'' that aims to develop power generating facilities with a capacity of 20 GW by 2020.

A long-range goal of the Union for the Mediterranean is the construction of power generating facilities in the Sahara Desert having a total capacity of 100 GW by the year 2050. Plans are being drawn up to transmit the power over a network of high-capacity power transmission lines installed between North Africa and various European countries. 

Banking on this union taking concrete shape, Sharp and Enel say they will work together in the future with "the goal of strategically expanding renewable energy in Europe, including in the Mediterranean region".

Sharp is also moving quickly to initiate the world's first ''solar business model'' by joining with an unidentified power company in an integrated business approach - from manufacture of thin-film solar cells to IPP activities - and is actively working toward becoming a company providing total solutions based on solar cells.