The core interest on this Renewable Electricity Generation / Photovoltaic project is to develop and optimize PV technologies in order to obtain advanced nanomaterials for new solar cell devices manufacturing, heaving improved quantum efficiency (QEff).

This is a new manufacturing approach of photovoltaic devices (PV), both on materials and technology issues. This solution could replace nowadays Si based photovoltaic’s, with a more efficient and a less expensive flexible technological solution.
The partners of the”IFIPVCELLS” Project Team are from different research areas of Romania.
These areas represent not only different pools of industrial, research and academic expertise, but also, through the natural conditions they gather exceptionally different testing requirements to solar exposure for intelligent embedded PV flexible modules.
As a final goals we are purposefuling:

• to integrate / grow the scientific level of the R&D activities, dedicated for PV technologies, within CONSORTIUM;
• to develop a long term partnership between involved entities;
• to develop R&D infrastructure with special emphasis on CONSORTIUM;

Energy research has been carried out at EU level since the 1960s, initially under the European Coal and Steel Community and Euratom treaties and continuing under successive research Framework Programmes. These Community actions have a proven European added value in terms of building critical mass, strengthening excellence and exercising a catalytic effect on national activities. In combination with national programmes, working at European level with an adequate combination of innovation and regulatory measures has produced substantial results, for instance in the fields of clean and efficient coal, renewables, energy efficiency, cogeneration and nuclear energy.
This can be illustrated through some examples:

• Photovoltaics: in 2005, the world production of photovoltaic modules was 1760 MW compared to 90 MW in 1996. Over the same period, the average module price has decreased from about €5/W to about €3/W.
• In Europe, the installed capacity has increased 35-fold in 10 years to reach 1800MW in 2005 and the average annual growth rate of about 35% in the past decade makes photovoltaics one of the fastest growing energy industries.

Photovoltaic solar energy
Total installed PV capacity in the EU has been growing at an unprecedented average annual growth rate of 70% over the last five years, from 127 MWp in 2000 to 1,794 MWp at the end of 2005. The impressive growth of the total installed capacity in Europe is driven by Germany: 86% of currently installed PV capacity in the EU is in Germany. The other European markets have a completely different dimension. The Netherlands has over 50 MWp installed and Spain 58 MWp. Another indicator, the “peak power per capita” ratio of the EU 25 Member States , is also rising markedly. It rose from 2.5 Wp per inhabitant in 2004 up to 3.9 Wp per inhabitant in 2005. For comparison: Japan (128 million inhabitants) has an installed capacity of 8.9 Wp/inhabitant, while the USA (291 million inhabitants) has an installed capacity of 1.3 Wp/inhabitant. PV is mainly a decentralised technology. When installed on the roofs of buildings, its electricity has the advantage of providing two times the level of primary energy, due to conversion losses in thermally based electricity production plus savings in transmission and distribution losses.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY
The global potential for saving energy is huge. According to the International Energy Agency, successfully implemented energy efficiency policies could contribute to 80% of avoided greenhouse gases while substantially increasing security of supply.
Remarcable efforts are focused on new CLEAN energy sources, like solar cells, neither National Department of Energy-Center for PV cells in USA nor University Center of Cambridge-Great Britain and University of Uppsala-Swiss are in top. PV, as a domain, direct conversion of solar energy in to electric /domestic energy was, extremely, intensify in the last 10 years, taking into account a new opportunities.
Begining of the development in the year of 1970, forced by petroleum crisis, the last 35 years are growing technological endeavors for geting new PV devices, modular chips with enhanced QEff. produced at low costs.
In the time being, almost 2 GW power, in PV, are installed through the world. There are hundreds of MW installed for industrial purposes, hundreds of kW in domestic and commercial solar panel and thousands modules of 50W-100W for the under way development country.

European Photovoltaic Technology Platform: http://ec.europa.eu/research/energy

COORDINATOR OF THE PROJECT
National Institute for Lasers, Plasma and Radiation Physics INFLPR – CO
Group of Advanced Technologies in Thin Films-GAP (http://gap.inflpr.ro)

Project manager: Dr. Ing. Rares Victor Medianu
tel: 021 4574489; fax: 021 4022514; e-mail: rares.medianu@inflpr.ro