Asset Publisher

Development of Advanced Photovoltaic Technologies (ENSOL2). KK-2020/00077

Period:
from 2020 to 2021
Financing entity:
Basque Government (ELKARTEK program)
Description:

The vast majority of photovoltaic solar panels manufactured today come from China; this has derived on a spectacular decrease in the prices of photovoltaic systems in recent years and, therefore, a rebound in this type of energy that has positioned it as the form of energy with the greatest projection for the coming years. However, this fact has also caused the closure of numerous companies in Europe and the US, shifting the manufacture of photovoltaic panels to Asian countries (mainly China) with lower labor costs. A window of opportunity has been opened to a market in continuous expansion for those companies that operate in it or are well positioned to do so. The monopoly of Chinese panel manufacturers has caused that the opportunities presented by the sector come from other activities in the photovoltaic value chain, such as; development of panel manufacturing lines, Balance Of System (BOS), new higher power inverters, high added value applications, etc. Continuing with the work initiated in the ENSOL project (Elkartek 2018-2019), the aim of this project is to respond to this opportunity presented to Basque companies, which are either already operating in this sector in the international market, or they have the capabilities to face this new challenge. For this purpose, in this project, research and development of technology in the same 4 different research lines in ENSOL is proposed, although the content and advances that will be made in each of them differ from the research proposed and carried out in the previous project. The lines of research described are the following: Line 1: Technologies for optimizing LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy), Line 2: Technologies for high added value applications and integration, Line 3: Advanced instrumentation for on-line control, Line 4: BOS-Power converters. The consortium is made up of TECNALIA (leader of the consortium), BCMaterials, KONIKER, MU-EPS, TIM (UPV/EHU) and APERT (UPV/EHU). The work of the APERT research group is fundamentally on line 4 related to power conversion technologies for large PV plants and PV systems with high added value.