CoSt redUction and enhanced PERformance of PV systems

Project Information

SUPER PV

Grant agreement ID: 792245

DOI

10.3030/792245

Project closed

EC signature date 30 April 2018

Start date 1 May 2018

End date 31 October 2022

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 11 543 295,89

EU contribution

€ 9 907 793,00

Coordinated by

UAB SOLI TEK R&D
Lithuania

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - SUPER PV (CoSt redUction and enhanced PERformance of PV systems)

Reporting period: 2021-05-01 to 2022-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

SUPER PV implemented ambitious goal to increase competitiveness of the PV products manufactured in EU introducing innovations in key PV value chain segments: PV module, power electronics and system integration. Selected for uptake innovations are compatible with existing manufacturing technological processes thus reducing impact on Cost of Ownership and ensuring attractiveness of proposed technologies for PV manufacturers.

Prototype SUPER PV systems were produced in industrial environment and tested in different climate conditions to evaluate cost efficiency and competitiveness of the proposed solutions. On the basis of test results, business cases for technologies under consideration were performed, plans for production and market replication prepared. Project delivered expected impact, namely:
1. Created conditions for accelerated large scale deployment of PV in Europe for both utility (non-urban) and residential (urban) scenarios and
2. Supported EU PV businesses to regain leadership and competitiveness on world market.

Project focused its activities on following technical objectives:
- To integrate innovations into state-of-art PV module technologies reducing the PV module cost and improving performance (impact on PR and CAPEX).
- To implement innovations for enhancing PV power electronics durability and efficiency by deploying innovations in module level power electronics and fault tolerant converter topologies. (impact on PR and OPEX)
- To adopt digital software and hardware tools ensuring integrated information flow through the PV value chain this way reducing costs related to the PV projects implementation and operation. (impat on CAPEX and OPEX).

To ensure wider impact project innovation activities were supported by following non-technical project objectives focused on acceleration of European PV business for EU and global markets:
- To demonstrate superiority of proposed technical innovations in real environment on demonstration sites in harsh climate conditions
- To demonstrate realistic use scenarios for proposed PV systems to support the business generation.
- To develop implement dissemination strategy and establish sites for practice oriented education, training and knowledge exchange for main stakeholders under concern.
- To broadly advertise the scientific and commercial innovations developed during the project and their associated benefits, thus facilitating market uptake.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

SUPER PV project was undergoing innovations development phase on three value chain segments namely PV module, power electronics and BOS through information management system (O&M).

Following innovations were developed and tested under SUPER PV project:
- Module innovations. c-Si PV module was upgraded by following innovations: front glass anti-reflecting and anti-soiling nano-coating, light management in bi-facial PV modules. For CIGS modules innovative low-cost encapsulation with an Al2O3 barrier for flexible lightweight PV modules was implemented leading to 45% cost reduction. Innovations were successfully developed demonstrating positive impact on LCOE under laboratory conditions nevertheless in field conditions only part of them were approved by industrial partners for the further industrialization. These innovations are: in-laminate bypass diodes and infra-red reflection feature demonstrating coating.
- Power electronics successfully implemented innovations: module level power electronics, fault tolerant converter topologies enhancing PV power electronics durability and efficiency, improved data monitoring and information sharing using IoT Gateway and novel sensors. GaN-based inverter was not successfully implemented.
- Information management system: Two main solutions have been developed in the SUPER PV consortium, in accordance with the PIM approach. One solution is based on a specific extension of the existing BIMSolar simulation and design platform, as the SuperPV software core. It can serve as an interactive and interoperable platform enabling the different stakeholders to design PV plants, run PV techno-economic simulation and optimization, as well as to share their PV data and information, including costs.

Another solution for the O&M stage, based on the existing infrastructure of GridPilot, an in-cloud software platform developed in the context of some other H2020 projects. Innovations added in the SuperPV project are related to the possibility to import the PIM model of the PV plant, the improvement of monitoring and digital twin services, which allows the minimization of PV generation losses, with impact on overall plant LCOE.

Despite obstacles caused by Covid pandemic all demo sites were implemented successfully and served for data gathering and evaluation of innovations performance in field conditions. According to declaration of demo sites owners with agreement with industrial partners demo sites will be gathering data also after the project and will be available for testing innovative products coming from industrial partners.

Supporting activities: the implementation of the project was accompanied by wide dissemination campaign. The results of the project were presented at conferences, scientific and other publications, web site, social networks and via media channels. The website is linked to the hashtag #superpv in LinkedIn and Twitter which were used as main social media platforms for posting on regular basis news about the consortium’s activities and first results. The video is available via the link https://youtu.be/UdvUoQGztGo. Training activities have been focused on implementation of dissemination strategy and establishing sites for practice-oriented education, training, and knowledge exchange for main stakeholders under concern.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Project innovations were demonstrating clear progress beyond the state of the art impacting LCOE for novel PV systems in all three addressed value chain segments (module, power electronics and system level management tools). Exploitation team was monitoring progress on the basis of defined KPIs matchmaking with market developments this way ensuring that project results are providing competitive advantage for companies involved.

A commercialization risk assessment was performed for all innovations, initial business plans for the most promising SUPER PV innovations were developed, i.e. innovations with a TRL > 5 at project end and at a moderate or low commercialization risk level. This constitutes altogether 8 innovations. The main purpose of developing business plans for individual innovations was to assist innovators and commercializing parties so that they have as good a starting point as possible for taking their innovation further towards commercialization after the end of SUPER PV.

It is expected that such approach will help manufacturing industry partners to deliver superior quality products to the market immediately after the project and align innovative technologies with recent market trends such as new solar cells dimensions, overall power of the module or PV plant novel constructions for bi-facial PV modules and tracking options. It also will have positive impact on competitiveness of PV industrial partners and in general PV industry in EU and create wider possibilities for deployment of EU based products in EU and world-wide market. It will support European strategic objectives providing affordable RES based energy to European customers.

Location of SUPER PV demo sites in harsh climate conditions.

Demo site in Vilnius, Lithuania.

CIGS bifacial and mono facial panels in Seville (Spain) demo site.

Demo site in Tozeur (Tunisia): PV plant and SMA inverters.