AP.1
Manufacturing

You have certainly noticed that the detailed programme of the EUPVSEC 2024 is now on the web.
It is worthwhile to have a look now at the wide range of presentations available when you join us at the conference.
We cannot preview all the programme sessions, there are just too many! However, we can at least preview the plenary talks, as they are intended for a larger audience and are exclusive (no other oral or visual presentations at the same time). We reserved the main auditorium on the mornings of Monday, Wednesday and Friday for these presentations, which are intended to provide you with an insight in the current “hot” topics of Photovoltaics, given by high-level experts in their field.

This year, the Scientific Committee selected these themes for the plenaries:

• Manufacturing
• PV Everywhere & Performance and Reliability | Thin Films and Tandems
• Sustainability

We will preview all these thematic presentations in the coming weeks.
Let us start today with the Manufacturing theme. In Europe, this is a hot topic, as it is required to have as much manufacturing capacity as possible to meet the European climate targets for 2030 / 2045.

Given the leading role that PV modules made in China play in Europe and globally, you shouldn’t be surprised that we invited Xinyu Zhang of Jinko, China, to start the EU PVSEC on Monday morning at 9:30 with a keynote talk presenting the perspective of a very large manufacturer on “What is new in Silicon PV and TOPCon technology” [1AP.1.1]. Dr Zhang is the R&D Director at Jinko and one of the leaders who brought Jinko to become the No. 1 solar module supplier. We expect him to provide more details about the technology challenges and the planned expansion to more than 100 GW yearly capacity that he is anticipating.

This keynote is followed by two presentations from Europe. The first one [1AP.1.2], titled “Module Technology Overview – A Manufacturing Perspective” will be given by Eszter Voroshazi (CEA / INES, Le Bourget-du-Lac, France). She will describe in detail the current technologies for the manufacturing steps towards a complete module, and how these can be integrated in a large manufacturing plant. We can also expect an outlook on specialty modules, like those used in Building Integrated Photovoltaics. The current trend is to identify possibilities for seemingly contradictory “high-volume / custom-made” technologies with the potential to significantly reduce the cost of such designs, which also requires new manufacturing methods.

Following this overview, the next presentation [1AP.1.3] will give insights into PV manufacturing in Europe. Marina Foti (3SUN) will report on “3SUN The First European PV Gigafactory: Enabling Progress with Sustainable Energy”. Being responsible for advanced technology development at 3UN, she will report on the details of technologies of the manufacturing line which grows now to a 3 GW annual capacity, 15 times larger compared to its initial capacity. 3SUN, company of Enel group, is since 2011 the enterprise for advanced PV technologies for the growth of the Catania manufacturing site. She will explain why the Hetero-Junction Technology (HJT) was the process of choice for the future of this Gigawatt factory and will highlight progress and future prospects.

We are confident that you share our excitement to have three presentations in this Monday plenary that make it worthwhile for you to attend and get briefed first-hand by excellent speakers.

The next preview in a few weeks will detail the plenary sessions on PV Everywhere and Performance and Reliability | Thin Films and Tandem.

Plenary Summary by
Heinz Ossenbrink
Former European Commission Joint Research Centre