Wednesday, 16 September,
08:30–10:00 | 10:30–12:30

Welcome to our second “sneak” preview of the Plenary sessions of the 2026 EU PVSEC in Rotterdam. The morning of Wednesday, 16th September is reserved for two plenary sessions covering the technology innovations of PV solar energy conversion. Before the Session covering the mainstream Si-technologies we scheduled at 8:30 the session CP1 titled Thin-Film PV Technologies Towards Impact. The title reflects, to a certain extent, the situation that Si-PV constitutes by far the current markets and industries, due to its high efficiency and steep cost decrease. However, concerns about material consumption and circularity seem to give now a 2nd opportunity for thin-film technologies, in particular when configured in multijunction structures. But the rapid efficiency rise of Perovskite technologies has given a new enthusiasm to engage in the development of thin film technologies and their “manufacturability”.

Consequently, the plenary starts with the presentation CP1.1 “Perovskites Advancement of Next-Generation Photovoltaic Technologies” by Annamaria Petrozza of the Italian Institute of Technology. She will give us a lecture on one of the superior features of perovskites, their tunable bandgap achievable by designing the chemical composition of the crystalline unit – an asset for multijunction solar devices. She will in her presentation elucidate the photochemistry of defects related to chemical composition of the semiconductor before discussing how to exploit these defects to improve the figures of merit of solar cells and their stability. We are convinced that Mrs Petrozza will make a very exciting and intriguing presentation about the complexity of Perovskite semiconductors very understandable to all attendees of the conference, given her expertise as Director of the “Center for Nano Science and Technology” and lecturer at the Polytechnic University of Milan.

The next Plenary talk CP1.2 will be given by Eva-Maria Hammer of ZSW Stuttgart. ZSW is known for 38 years for pioneering thin-film technologies. The title of her presentation “Thin-Film PV Production in Europe – Opportunities and Research Perspective” indicates already the importance of re-establishing a European PV manufacturing industry. Mrs Hammer will explain why thin-film technologies are a promising candidate to achieve this, as they can be key enablers for production with high local added value, especially as all processing steps can occur at one production site. Regarding production of thin-film modules, she will demonstrate the availability of basically all raw materials in Europe. The talk will also touch upon strategic advantage of reducing import dependencies. Regarding production costs we will expect results from the new modelling tool of ZSW which allows to estimate the cost of thin-film PV production based on location, including costs of land and buildings, machinery, materials and personnel. Interesting will be comparison of the economics of Perovskites vs. CIGS thin film technology.

In CP.1.3, titled “Perovskite/Silicon Triple Junction Devices: Achievements and Learnings from the TRIUMPH Project Funded under Horizon Europe” we will witness the results of a very large European Project. No less than 43 Researchers from 15 institutes in 7 European countries aimed to develop next generation PV technology coming after tandems. The project explored triple-junction devices based on the cost-effective and highly efficient perovskites for the middle and top cells and the robust and well-proven silicon for the bottom cell. The project is close to its end after four years and we expect reports of measured efficiencies above 30%. The practical efficiency potential of these novel 2-teminal devices is modelled to be ~39%, the talk will illuminate certainly details of the technology, in particular what challenges and conditions this research found for outperforming the current record efficiency of the competing technology of tandem Perovskite / Si of 34.8%. In this plenary we will certainly see a highlight of current European cutting-edge research, presented by H.S. Radhakrishnan of IMEC.

Another European approach to achieve highly efficient devices we will hear from Laura Stevens of FHG-ISE in Germany in her presentation CP.1.4 “Designing and Manufacturing of a 34.21 % World-record Efficiency Non-Concentrating Terrestrial PV Module with Optimized Optics and Shingle Interconnection of III-V Solar Cells”. The novelty is the solder-less interconnection of III-V-Ge cells in shingles together with a front glass cover with a special, nano-imprinted antireflective coating. The module has a size of 800 cm2 which makes the 34.2% efficiency achievement very remarkable. Clearly this module-level optimisation targets the application on satellites, however, as the III-V-Ge stack has also been optimized for a terrestrial AM1.5 spectrum, we expect that the presentation will also cover high-value high-efficiency applications like Vehicle-Integrated-PV, in particular by integration in the wings and fuselage of electric-powered aircrafts.

This concludes this first plenary session on novel thin-film technologies. The scientific committee of the EU PVSEC has made quite a wide and significant selection of activities which demonstrate the highly innovative eco-system of European PV R&D.

What follows immediately (well, after a nice coffee break from 10:00-10:30) is the Plenary Session CP.2 on the mainstream PV Technology: Silicon PV Design, Manufacturing and Circularity, which will highlight not only the maturity and cost-decrease but also the upcoming technologies of next generation Si-PV modules.

We start in the presentation CP.2.1 with the scene setter “Towards 28% Efficient Silicon Solar Cells in Mass Production” by D. MacDonald of the ANU Canberra, which gives us the opportunity to receive a comprehensive overview from a non-commercial organisation. 28% is very close to the theoretical limit of Si single-junctions, so it will be quite exciting what further steps in current TOPCon technology the presenter will describe. He will compare the details of current champions and detail the current knowledge about the “missing Jsc” by breaking down these losses to light trapping management and bulk transport losses. We will learn about the attempts to improve towards 28% efficiency, and how these improvements can actually be manufactured. We think this presentation will also help to understand why current champions have achieved already 27%. Don’t miss this presentation if you want to be really updated on today’s sophisticated Si-PV technology.

Being the R&D Director at a significant PV producer from China, Mr. Menglei Xu of Jinko Solar, will expose the latest “Development of TOPCon and Back Contact Solar Cells in China” in the presentation CP2.2. As can be expected, the author did not provide much detail about planned presentation, but at the time of this preview Jinko Solar shipped more solar modules than any manufacturer with 86 GW in 2025. We expect a powerful presentation which will detail the status of Jinko’s current major technology in comparison to other manufacturers. We also hope that Mr. Xu will additionally present more results on Jinko’s efforts to develop Perovskite tandems on commercial TOPCon wafers, expecting efficiencies above 34%. It seems that such configuration is the most promising way to overcome the 28% Si efficiency limits, and Jinko certainly knows how to manufacture such more complex structures cost effectively.

As we heard so far about the progress of the PV device R&D, it will be interesting to learn from the presentation CP.2.3 “Module Technology Innovations – An Important Driver for Performance and Cost Improvements as well as New Applications in Photovoltaics” what the current focus in module development is. Dirk-Holger Neuhaus of the FHG-ISE in Germany will give us a tour through the current efforts to make the module production “greener”, in production for instance by solderless shingle layout or use of secondary raw materials and avoidance of environmentally harmful substances. We will also hear about better considering reparability and recyclability already at the module design phase. All these innovative features not only would bring module production in line with current and future EU Directives, but also provide an opportunity for true European manufacturing. We expect also to learn about how new module design fosters also new applications, as could be the case with the developments within SMARTLINE PV, an EU project aiming to develop Highly efficient and stable Perovskite modules on flexible substrates.

As you probably have noticed in previous EU PVSEC, we give high importance to awarding students with outstanding results achieved during their research work, mostly during their PhD phase. The awards are handed over in the closing session, and the awardees a drawn from a number of nominations, screened by the scientific committee. This year we have a small sensation, as the work of Youri Blom, student at the PV Materials and Device Group (PVMD) University of Delft in the Netherlands will be presented during a Plenary session. His work is titled “The PVMD Toolbox v2: A Modular Framework for Modelling Advanced Photovoltaic Systems” and we will hear more details about it in session CP2.4. This toolbox features the comprehensive modelling of an entire PV system, its physical model starts from the device characteristics and extends to module level models, mounting, weather data etc until finally AC energy generation. Special applications like floating PV can be modelled through plug-ins, of which the toolbox accepts many different ones, including performance models of multi-junction multi-terminal devices. The PVMD Toolbox is mostly based on fundamental material properties and requires minimal empirical input, making it suitable for novel and emerging PV technologies. The talk will present the PVMD Toolbox in its second version, featuring significant enhancements that extend its capabilities, such as reverse bias behaviour, photon recycling, and meta-stability. It looks as if the toolbox is particularly suited to forecast real-world performance of multi-junction devices with their sensitivity to spectral irradiance changes during the day. And, it is in the public domain! We are looking forward to questions from the audience, such as “how much of AI is in your modelling steps?”. Certainly, a presentation not to miss!

In accordance with the European policy on the circular economy there are a number of activities in Europe aiming to fulfil the requirements of circularity also for PV modules. Jaione Bengoechea of CENER in Spain will give us an overview about the status in her talk (CP.2.5) “Towards Circular PV Modules”, addressing both resource scarcity and environmental impact. She will point out that with global PV deployment forecasted to exceed 1 TW annually by 2030, circular design principles—such as easy disassembly, high purity material recovery, and modularity—must be integrated without compromising performance, durability, or economic viability. In this session we will also learn how in detail the recovery of critical raw materials will mitigate supply risks and reduce waste.

Before the lunch-break this Plenary session ends with the talk of Peter Brailovsky of FhG-ISE who will address the circularity of novel processes in the fabrication of TOPCon cells. He will present the modelling of “Time-Resolved Circular Energy Flows in TOPCon Solar Cell Production” (CP2.6) for which the group (which also includes manufacturing equipment industries) developed a comprehensive model of material flow analysis. Priority is given to model first the energy consumption and subsequently the possible recovery of excess process heat which could be in turn sent to other processes. The presentation will point out that there would be a potential of saving half of the electricity needs. Not bad, as it could not only further reduce “energy payback time” but also a significant portion of electricity costs. The authors combine material flow analysis with discrete event simulation. We expect that the presenter will also give an outlook how this “digital twin” modelling of the factory floor could be extended to minimise waste of precious raw materials.

This concludes our preview of the Wednesday morning Plenaries. If you make it to stay the whole morning you will now have a very complete understanding of topics which currently spin in the R&D world. You earned a good lunch now!

Stay tuned for our next preview of the Friday plenaries!