Friday 26 September
10:30–12:10

Welcome to our last preview of the EU PVSEC plenary talks, which we want to continue with a glance at those scheduled for Friday. Friday morning is a kind of 'wrap-up' where the collective photovoltaic knowledge presented throughout the week is presented against the background of the ever-closer major energy source of the world. In the last plenary session of the conference, we cover the pressing issues when it comes to truly terawatt scale PV production: the topic 'Flexibility and Sustainability' addresses both the challenge of integrating PV into a conventional energy system (or vice-versa?) as well as possible material problems, either because of scarcity or the place of PV products in the circular economy.

The plenary session starts at 10:30 with an invited presentation on 'PV Plus Storage as a Flexibility Enabler of the Energy System'. Gerd Heilscher of Technische Hochschule Ulm in Germany will explain how important PV storage will be harden our energy system for times of low sunshine and less wind. Current market conditions make storage systems also an attractive business case for a range of operators, from private owners of small systems to very large or aggregated systems. There are also multiple benefits regarding lowering transport costs by placing storage decentrally, or by using the existing grid infrastructure when storage systems are placed for instance at former nuclear power plants. Gerd Heilscher will most probably also give insights into the functionality of the data model which allows decentralised electricity generation to be modelled according to IEC 61850 (Communication networks and systems for power utility automation).

Continuing on the themes of smart grids, the next talk titled 'Quantifying the Benefits of Hybrid PV-wind Power Plants' illuminates the complementarity of PV and wind energy. Erik Stensrud Marstein of the Institute for Energy Technology in Kjeller, Norway will talk about an interesting approach: Retrofitting existing wind parks with PV capacity. By using data from more than 100 wind power plants combined with meteorological data, the group models the production from hybrid PV-wind power plants at all locations. Subsequently, they use a techno-economic model and multiple linear regression analysis to determine in which cases hybridisation is most profitable. The plenary talk will also clearly indicate the most important parameters on which the profitability of such hybridisation depends. We are curious to get first indications of the role electricity storage can play within this modelling project.

The title of the next plenary 'A Commodity Today, Incompatible Tomorrow: the Paradox of PV?', immediately attracts curiosity as Bert Herteleer of KU Leuven, Ghent, Belgium elaborates on the long-term market conditions of PV systems. The authors point to the fact that, on the one hand, the rapid innovation cycles of PV module technologies allow a steep cost decrease, but on the other hand make it very difficult to replace a defective module cost-effectively after years of operation. The authors will report on their assessment of this 'paradox' and will shed light on the challenges posed by accelerated material innovation, the lack of long-term reliability data, and the systemic obstacles to sustainable lifecycle management. Their findings underscore the urgent need for industry-wide standardisation, extended qualification protocols, and strategies to mitigate the operational and economic risks associated with PV module obsolescence. Particularly interesting will be the comparison between the simple 'spare modules' approach and the cannibalization of still functioning modules and sub-arrays near the end of the technical lifetime. A plenary with a novel approach to lifetime costs of PV systems, don’t miss it!

Also, the following plenary talk will expand on the fate of PV systems at the end of their technical lifetimes. Claire Agraffeil of CEA/INES, Le Bourget-du-Lac, France, will present the 'Integrated system for high-value recycling of photovoltaic EoL panels', designed within the European project PHOTORAMA. It encompasses a comprehensive model for PV waste management, from collection to sorting, treatment, production of secondary raw materials, and depollution. The plenary talk will detail how modelling results can be realised in real-world industrial recycling context, such as innovative process-steps for sorting and disassembly of the external components (frame, junction box), the delamination of the multilayer sandwich, and finally, the metal extraction from the solar cells. The presentation will also cover indicator-based approaches to quantify and monetise the recycling ratio. Particularly remarkable is that the integrated model has been designed to be flexible for a large variety of PV modules.

At the end of this plenary session, we look forward to the very last presentation of the EU PVSEC. This talk addresses a societal promise in energy production which only PV can deliver. 'Renewable Energy Communities and Citizen Participation in Technological and Social Innovations' is the title of the talk that Cristina Sanz-Cuadrado, of UPM, Madrid, Spain, will give. The presentation will illustrate the crucial role that citizens have played in fostering both technological and social innovations within the low-carbon energy sector, particularly in the photovoltaic (PV) sector. The team’s work examines real-world experiences that exemplify effective citizen engagement in innovation processes. For instance, citizens have played a pivotal role in deploying essential technical innovations in the energy sector, which have been enhanced through collaboration with citizens or, in some cases, have emerged directly from their involvement, and the study combines original material with a thorough bibliographic review. The presentation will also give us insight into European energy communities as a significant social innovation, providing inspirational examples of how such energy communities could improve citizen engagement. They will conclude that so far, only 32% of the communities achieve active citizen involvement. This will give us a key message before leaving the conference: Actively foster citizen engagement!

Even though this was the last presentation of the conference, please stay in the auditorium for the highlights of the closing session: scheduled are a short summary of the conference, the student and poster awards, and finally, the farewell by the conference chair.

We hope that our plenary previews have made you curious about the programme of the EU PVSEC 2025 in Bilbao. Don’t miss this major European event on science, research and development of photovoltaics!

We look forward to meeting you in Spain!

Plenary Summary by
Heinz Ossenbrink
Former European Commission Joint Research Centre