A cross-partner Royce Research team has published an important progress update to the Henry Royce Institute Materials for Photovoltaic Systems Roadmap which brought together the UK PV community to discuss the technological and infrastructure aspects pertaining to critical work towards net-zero carbon emissions targets.
Created back in 2020, the Materials for Photovoltaic Systems roadmap set out priorities, targets and enablers identified by UK research communities to help achieve a range of PV solutions, from enabling over 50 GW grid-scale solar capacity, to development of zero-carbon buildings, and solar power-integrated automotive applications.
These priorities were designed to capitalise on the UK’s strong base in early-stage research in PV, and focused on linking this with downstream industry scale-up and commercial translation opportunities. The important work asserted that stronger links between low and medium Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) would enable the UK to take advantage of materials technologies for niche applications, which in turn would allow access to new PV markets and secondary supply chains.
Led by Prof. Robert Hoye, Associate Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Royce Partner, the University of Oxford, the more recent analysis forms a new paper released earlier in October 2024 which provides key developments and shares recommendations to drive future research and development in photovoltaic technologies. The recommendations highlight:
- The vital role of large-scale solar power in reaching carbon-neutral targets and the opportunity for the UK to engage in a growing solar supply chain.
- A proposal for more investment in solar photovoltaics and manufacturing, including increasing and improving manufacturing facilities, and research to further improve the performance of new and established photovoltaic technologies.
- Understanding how the use of photovoltaic technologies can impact beyond the generation of solar energy, influencing new findings in green hydrogen, low-loss electronics and more.
- How emerging photovoltaic technologies can offer enormous potential to address some of the wider challenges facing society. This includes allowing infrastructure and agriculture to become more sustainable and more resource-efficient by utilising indoor and building-integrated solar panels, as well as placing solar panels on farmland. Furthermore, photovoltaics could lower the cost of space missions by replacing current semiconductors.
- The importance of developing international standards for emerging photovoltaic technologies to certify performance and stability support their sustained development and ensure faster commercialisation and deployment.
- The introduction of efforts and legislation to improve the life cycle of photovoltaics, including ‘material circularity’ to help reduce the environmental impacts associated with mining and manufacturing processes, as well as the cost. This aims to move away from the current cheapest option, which is to put photovoltaic technologies in landfill.
- Targeted collaboration and data-sharing between researchers in academia and industry, in addition to increased collaboration between groups working on different technologies.
- Greater investment in training and highly transferable skills development to support new manufacturing and instrumentation, development and deployment, and an understanding of the structure behaviour and performance in the photovoltaics technology field.
- Considering the ‘photovoltaics ecosystem’, including the materials used and supply chains for important materials and the security of supply chains.
- A focus on developing policy and legislation to support new photovoltaic technologies.
Prof. Hoye said:
“Our paper puts the spotlight on the growing potential of solar technologies to support sustainable energy, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase our energy independence. It demonstrates that photovoltaics, both established and emerging, offer enormous potential to address some of the wider challenges we face – not least the pressing need to be much more resource efficient across many sectors of the economy”
Hear Prof. Hoye talk about the paper, alongside physicists Nakita Noel and Pascal Kaienburg; and materials scientist Sebastian Bonilla, on the latest episode of the Physics World Podcast.
Read the full paper: Roadmap on established and emerging photovoltaics and sustainable energy conversion.
