The world faces a critical situation: climate change driven by greenhouse-gas emissions from massive fossil-fuel use threatens the planet. Energy-related CO2 emissions rose 0.9% in 2022 to over 36.8 Gt, far from the 45% reduction needed to limit warming to 1.5°C. Fossil fuels are also depleting: the oil peak has passed and the gas peak is near. The IEA warns that with current disinvestment, oil production could fall 50% in five years. Meanwhile, the EU remains heavily dependent on external fuel supplies, as shown by recent Russian gas disruptions.
The EU has responded with an ambitious framework—the Green Deal, Climate Law, REPowerEU and Fitfor55—promoting electrification and renewables. Solar PV is expanding rapidly: REPowerEU targets 320 GW of new capacity by 2025 and nearly 600 GW by 2030. SolarPower Europe indicates these goals may be reached early: in 2022 the EU had 209 GW installed and may reach 590 GW by 2026.
Yet this rapid growth brings challenges. PV systems underperform: studies show plants generate 6.3% less than expected. At 1 TW, recovering 75% of these losses would yield 47 GW—more than EU installations from 2018–2020—and €4,072M annually. Causes include undetected failures and the inability of current tools to process huge SCADA datasets. With plants now reaching 300–500 MW or more, engineering teams are overstretched, managing roughly 250 MW per person.
Battery integration could boost performance and flexibility but remains underused due to costs, lack of optimisation tools and regulatory gaps, especially for co-located or centralised storage.
PVOP seeks to address these issues with eight innovative solutions based on models, digital twins and AI combined with expert knowledge. It will apply advanced AI and Big Data to real PV data to uncover causal links behind failures and develop robust solutions. Needs will be validated through Open Science with stakeholders, iterating up to TRL 7. Outputs will include best-practice guidelines and regulatory recommendations, supporting EU goals for climate neutrality and energy autonomy.
PVOP’s overarching goal is to digitalise the PV sector to ensure profitability and meet the 600-GW REPowerEU target by 2030.
Its three specific objectives are:
SO1: Increase PV portfolio performance by 4.7% and cut O&M costs by 32% through near-automatic assessment and fault detection.
SO2: Improve grid-friendly integration, flexibility and energy trading through storage.
SO3: Support EU-wide adoption to ensure PV capacity reliably delivers expected electricity.
