Belgian research institute Imec has been named the coordinator of a 3-year European Union (EU) funded project called »ESPResSo« (Efficient Structures and Processes for Reliable Perovskite Solar Modules). The consortium has been granted over €5 million by the EU »to overcome the limitations of today’s state-of-the-art perovskite PV technology, bring perovskite solar cells to the next maturity level, and demonstrate their practical application.« The team targets to develop alternative cost effective materials, novel cell concepts and architectures, and advanced processing know-how and equipment.

The members of the consortium include the fundamental research organizations Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (Switzerland) and Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Italy); perovskite solar cell scale-up and industrialization members Imec (Belgium), Universita degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata (Italy) and Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE (Germany); furthermore experts in sustainability and renewable energies CSGI (Italy) and University of Cyprus. Members representing materials development include Dycotec Materials LTD (United Kingdom), Dyenamo AB (Sweden) and Corning SAS (France); equipment manufacturer M-Solv LTD (United Kingdom), along with perovskite solar cell technology developers Saule Technologies (Poland), and building-integrated photovoltaics developer Onyx Solar Energy SL (Spain).

Perovskite solar cells have already demonstrated high efficiencies (above 22 percent) that rival those of established mainstream thin-film PV technologies like copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) and cadmium-telluride (CdTe). According to Imec, the challenge is now »to transfer the unprecedented progress that the perovskite PV cell technology has made in recent years from its cell level into a scalable, stable, low-cost technology on module level.«