The European Technology and Innovation Platform for Photovoltaics (ETIP PV) has hosted its annual conference in Brussels, bringing together participants from the academic, policy and PV solar industry sectors.
This year’s edition was particularly significant, as it marked 20 years of the ETIP PV platform, which has played a key role in uniting stakeholders from research, industry and policy to shape Europe’s solar innovation agenda. Under the theme of “The urgency of now: Innovation in making deployment and production targets a reality for solar PV,” the event aimed to address the pressing need for innovative solutions to achieve the EU’s ambitious 2030 targets: 720 GWdc of PV deployment and 30 GW of PV manufacturing capacity across the entire value chain.
Throughout the day, three thematic sessions explored key pillars of Europe’s solar challenge: tracking progress in PV deployment and manufacturing, strengthening industrial competitiveness along the value chain and bridging the funding gap for innovative PV technologies.
Vincent Berrutto, Head of Unit of the European Commission Directorate for Energy, opened the Conference, emphasising the Commission’s commitment to fostering innovation and competitiveness in clean energy. Key measures include facilitating agreements, accelerating permitting processes and boosting electrification efforts to support the scaling of PV technologies.
Three panel discussions at the conference offered insights into market dynamics, regulatory needs and financing tools, while also providing a space for open exchange between solar innovators and policymakers. Proposed solutions include enhancing grid flexibility, integrating battery storage and building sustainable supply chains to ensure a resilient energy system. In terms of industrial policy, it was stressed that “Made in Europe” must go hand-in-hand with resilience and the application of non-price criteria, ensuring the competitiveness and strategic autonomy of European PV manufacturing.
Delfina Munoz, strategic project manager and senior researcher at CEA Liten, commented: “The urgency of now demands sustainable, fast and flexible innovative solutions to accompany the massive PV deployment. Today’s challenges require quick solutions that transform ambitious targets into tangible reality in the whole PV value chain as part of the overall energy system.”
Concluding the conference, Rutger Schlatmann, Head of the Solar Energy division at Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin and ETIP PV Chairman, reflected on the platform’s long-standing impact and the urgency of collective action: “There is universal agreement that PV will be and remain a crucial element of Europe’s secure, competitive and environmentally friendly energy mix, not only through further massive deployment of technology produced elsewhere, but also by building up and fostering a powerful and modern European PV production supply chain that securely anchors PV as a key part of the continent’s energy system. We have all the technological know-how and PV’s massive innovation potential in our own hands, and now we need to exploit it to the fullest. This conference has shown that there is great urgency in this endeavour and that the sector, along with the European Commission, is fully committed to making it happen.”
