Despite all the problems impacting European solar over the past decade, the region remains a hotbed of manufacturing innovation and new product offerings. This special session, added to PV CellTech for the first time, will hear from a host of PV equipment suppliers across the region.

This special session at PV CellTech Europe 2024 will look at how R&D developments feed into mass production and next-generation technologies. The session will also feature contributions from PV CellTech Chair, Dr. Finlay Colville.

With silicon-based segment still almost 100% supplied by single-junction solar cells today, there remains a huge push to take these architectures to their maximum efficiency levels in mass production. New back-contact and hybrid solutions are now operating at multi-GW volumes, process flows are being upgraded on PERC and existing TOPCon lines, and new variants are emerging that could become mainstream offerings after TOPCon. This session will hear from a range of stakeholders driving these new production-ready cells and will look at volumes likely to be made in coming years.

This special session will hear from technology leaders in cell manufacturing and equipment supply.

Setting up a domestic manufacturing ecosystem remains a goal within Europe, but progress towards this end is far from certain today. This session will look at what needs to happen to get manufacturing up and running in Europe. Where does the financing come from? What is the return-on-investment making wafers, cells and modules? How important will a carbon-tax or ESG-compliant buying be? This session will look critically at the viability of European manufacturing in the coming years, in particular providing a benchmark for the investment community that needs to understand what to realistically expect in coming years.

A regular feature of the PV CellTech events over the past 10 years, the PV Roadmap session will once again close out the event this year. The roadmap will be addressed this time from different perspectives: the role of ESG and traceability in driving global manufacturing diversification; the roadmap to move to tandem cell structures by 2030 as mainstream technology offerings in manufacturing; and the ever-popular latest release of the 2024 ITRPV report.

Following the conclusion of the ITRPV session, VDMA Photovoltaic Equipment extends an invitation to all attendees to join us at the VDMA’s Frankfurt headquarters, conveniently located just a 10-minute walk from the conference venue. Dr. Puzant Baliozian, current lead consultant, will provide introductory words and the team has arranged a farewell reception for Dr. Jutta Trube, the former sector group leader. Additionally, we will celebrate the 15th edition of the ITRPV together. Attendance is complimentary for VDMA members and all PV CellTech Europe attendees. 

VDMA eV, Lyoner Strasse 18, 60528 Frankfurt am Main