Energy and Environment

Nordic Centre of Excellence in Photovoltaics

Nordic Centre of Excellence in Photovoltaics consists of 7 different research organisations within the Nordic region doing research on solar cells; Institute for Energy Technology (IFE), Danish Technological Institute, Helsinki University of Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Uppsala University, Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg, and Tallinn University of Technology.

Objective

The main objective of the Centre is to strengthen the already formed Nordic R&D network and develop it into a centre of excellence effectively serving the fast-growing and demanding Nordic PV industry. This will be achieved by:

  • Defining a PhD program with compulsory mobility of the students
  • Arranging general workshops within solar cell research
  • Organizing in-depth workshops on selected topics
  • Giving hands-on workshops on processing of solar cells
  • Actively disseminate results both in public and scientific media channels

The project is of high relevance for the Nordic energy sector both with respect to industrial development and installation of PV-systems.

Background

The overall challenge for the solar cell industry is to bring down the cost/kWh in order to become competitive with other energy resources in the future. Currently the annual increase of the shipment of solar cells is higher than 30 % and has been between 25 and 40 % during the last decade. This large increase has mainly been stimulated by national programmes with favourable feed-in tariffs and/or subsidies of investment costs. However, in the near future there will probably be a shift from program-stimulated expansion to market driven expansion. In Japan, which has for long been the largest market for solar cells, this will be finalized next year. Subsidies will no longer be available for solar electricity installations, making cost a critical issue.

The Nordic region has in recent years experienced the introduction and fast expansion of a solar electricity industry. In order to secure the continued expansion of this industry, a strong Nordic R&D platform is required.

Until the start of the NEF project “Nordic PV” in 2002, the Nordic PV research groups were working essentially independently of each other. However during the four-year project, a strong network has been built, a network facilitating sharing of knowledge, sharing of advanced laboratory facilities and new collaborations. The project focuses on the mobility of the students involved and on common workshops. This has proven to be an efficient way to fertilize the development of the network. Once formed, the network should be further strengthened and developed into a centre of excellence.

To turn the network into a virtual centre, five cross disciplinary research topics of common interest for all the groups involved in the centre have been defined: Search for new materials, Encapsulation and lifetime of solar panels, 3D modelling of solar cell structures, Contacting of solar cells, and light collection/light trapping. These topics will serve as cornerstones in the new project.

Relevance to stakeholders in the energy sector

The Nordic PV industry is expanding rapidly, including companies like NAPS Systems Oy, Rautaruukki Oy, Okmetic Oy, Gaia Solar A/S, Topsil A/S, Elkem Solar AS (ES), Renewable Energy Corporation As (REC), NorSun AS, Gällivare Photovoltaic AB, Arctic Solar AB and Solibro AB. In addition there are many sub-suppliers to the companies working directly in the main value chain (e.g. automation, feedstock, wafering, solar cells, solar modules and PV-systems).

One of the most important factors to further expansion in the Nordic region, is the presence of well educated personnel, since several of these new solar cell players are in a research-intensive development phase. Educating 7 new PhD`s in the field will give a positive impact. The broadening of scope through the PhD exchange program, is a further incitement for mobility of knowledge.

Furthermore, a coordinated marketing of the scientific personnel and their research lines, characterisation equipment and process equipment within the Centre will give the industry a better overview of the R&D possibilities available in the Nordic region. This opens opportunities for companies to find research partners, within the Nordic/Baltic region and facilitates use of advanced equipment available within the Nordic PV collaboration.

Modern solar cells are complicated devices and are results of extensive studies and engineering work. Therefore, working in collaboration helps to share special knowledge between partners, follows to keep scientific relations, that, finally, allows one to speed up achievement of the significant for industry scientific results.

Nordic benefit

In the currently running Nordic PV project, both technology and knowledge transfer have been taken place extensively between the different partners. This has been made possible through study visits to other laboratories within the Nordic PV, hand-on seminars arranged by the partners, common workshops and by common experiments involving the exchange of samples between the partners. Sharing a PhD student is a very efficient knowledge transfer between the laboratories, leading to extensive collaboration both on the supervisor level and between students.

In the Nordic Centre of Excellence in Photovoltaics two new partners from Estonia and Russia have been included. Furthermore the centre will focus on technology of common interest and more or less independent of solar technology. This will further strengthen our technology transfer between the different research groups.

The formation of a Nordic Centre of Excellence in Photovoltaics will generate a pool of characterisation and process equipment available through the partners. This will contribute to a more efficient use of advanced equipment, and possibly lead to a higher quality of the research, and subsequently in high-quality scientific output.


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