About
Renewable electricity is expected to become a cornerstone of our future sustainable, climate-neutral energy system. It could become the ‘primary fuel of the future’, serving well-known electricity needs, as well as powering heating and cooling in urban environments and industry. It also has the potential to power transport and mobility, and, in some parts of the world, desalination.
Renewable electricity enables the production of renewable fuels and feedstocks, such as hydrogen or hydrocarbons, when combined with carbon from sustainable sources.
Renewable energy and other low-carbon technologies with photovoltaic (PV) solar energy as a prominent component are key drivers of the energy transition and will play an important role in achieving the European Green Deal targets. The industry sectors related to these technologies are considered value chains of strategic importance for Europe. They offer great opportunities for job creation, contributing to the economy and the EU’s recovery plan Next Generation EU.
To ensure the success of the EU energy transition, with PV as a building block, the 2023 Implementation Plan lists the following two challenges:
- enable rapid and large-scale deployment in a sustainable manner
- (re)-build the strategic value cain for PV by exploiting Europe’s technological leadership.
Targets and objectives
The revised 2023 Implementation Plan adopts the challenges and corresponding targets, as well as R&I topics from the 2022 ETIP PV SRIA to contribute to a common understanding of PV R&I priorities. These R&I activities include:
- R&I Activity 1: Performance enhancement and cost reduction through advanced PV technologies and manufacturing
- R&I Activity 2: Lifetime, reliability and sustainability enhancements
- R&I Activity 3: New applications through integration of photovoltaics
- R&I Activity 4: Smart energy system integration of photovoltaics
- R&I Activity 5: Socio-economic aspects of the transition to high PV contribution.
For each of the activities, additional objectives are defined in the 2023 Implementation Plan.
Composition
The PV working group includes representatives of EU and Associated Countries, industrial stakeholders, NGOs and research institutes (see table below).
The group is co-chaired by Germany and the Netherlands with the support of the European technology and innovation platform (ETIP) PV.
If national representatives of EU and Associated Countries, and stakeholders are interested in actively participating in the working group, they can contact the Chair.
Partcipating SET Plan countries (in alphabetical order):
- Belgium
- Cyprus
- France
- Germany (Chair)
- Italy
- Netherlands
- Norway (Associated Country)
- Spain
- Türkiye (Associated Country)
Key members
- IWG Chair: Christoph Hünnekes, Project Management Jülich, Energy System: Renewable Energies / Power Plant Technology, Head of Photovoltaics, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
- IWG Co-chair: Wim Sinke, Co-chair European Technology and Innovation Platform Photovoltaics, ECN Solar Energy