A total of 25.7 million will be provided for the project through a combination of European and national grants.
In a statement announcing the project late last week, ERG highlighted the need for "exponential growth" in solar production technologies, if countries are to meet Europes 2020 climate targets. ERG therefore will target potential gains right across photovoltaic systems including, "improving the efficiency of solar cells, devising innovative harvesting techniques, reducing power-conversion losses, and enhancing energy-management strategies."
ERG project coordinator, Francesco Gennaro summed up the ERG project goal in a statement: "ERGs goal is to achieve significant efficiency improvements along the whole supply chain from PV panels to grid connection and make them available to all partners."
In terms of photovoltaic cell research, ERG hopes to increase efficiency to 25 percent. It will look at ultra-thin Si wafters, Si hetero-junction cells, back contact architecture and novel approaches for screen-printing and laser processing. ERG will also investigate the potential of dye-sensitized solar cells as a low cost alternative to Si. Concentrated photovoltaic techniques will additionally be investigated.
Further down the photovoltaic chain, ERG will investigate end-user profiles, energy storage and E-mobility support. Smart grid technology, including "optimal energy dispatching and battery charging algorithms," will be the final "chain link" in the photovoltaic research project.
The countries participating in the ERG project are Italy, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Ireland, The Netherlands, Slovak Republic and the United Kingdom.
Popular content
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Share
Jonathan Gifford
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.