Project description
Innovative solar panel technology will significantly expand application beyond building rooftops
Gone are the days of 'Little House on the Prairie', reading by candlelight and heating by firewood. The world's population continues to increase and urbanisation places tremendous demands on energy consumption. At the same time, climate change demands an alternative to fossil fuels. Photovoltaics that harness sustainable and clean energy from the Sun to produce electricity have blossomed. However, most installations in urban areas are confined to rooftops whereas the remaining surface area of buildings remains unexploited. Further retrofitting to achieve nearly zero energy buildings (NZEBs) requires innovative solutions. The EU-funded PIPER project is delivering flexible, semi-transparent and inexpensive solar panel technology to support a step-change in application of photovoltaic technology.
Objective
The impact of buildings to European final energy consumption has been assessed at 40%, making the building stock responsible for 36% of CO2 emissions. The reduction of energy consumption in buildings is the focus of the European 2020 strategy. EU’s essential policy instruments that encourage energy efficiency, retrofit measures and renewable production are: the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), the Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD and EPBD recast) and the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). One of the major initiatives promoted by the EPBD recast is the implementation of nearly zero energy buildings (NZEBs) as the building objective from 2018 onwards. In the US, as well, several states’ strategic plans stipulate that all new residential buildings must be zero-net-energy (ZNE) by 2020, all new commercial buildings - by 2030, and 50% of existing commercial buildings must be retrofitted to ZNE by 2030. However currently available technologies pose challenges to reaching these objectives in cost-effective way. As an example, photovoltaic devices which bring high hopes and expectations to NZEBs, can currently only cover roofs, not allowing to optimally use the majority of building surface. They only generate energy from direct natural light and cannot be used on existing buildings without the need of severe structure modifications. Similar challenges (compliance with regulations, search for optimal efficiency-cost ratio, need for constant performance improvement while maintaining aesthetic features) are also faced by many other industries (automobile, aeronautics, consumer goods – electronics, clothing, etc.)
Saule Sp. z o. o. (Saule Technologies) aims to address these challenges by introducing the first-on-the-market perovskite solar cells (PSC) which are efficient, flexible, semi-transparent and inexpensive solar panels.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energysolar energy
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringtextiles
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringaeronautical engineering
- engineering and technologycivil engineeringarchitecture engineeringsustainable architecturesustainable building
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
54-427 Wroclaw
Poland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.