This project proposal starts to walk pursuing to accomplish the following main general objective: to overcome the main limiting factors of BIPV technology strengthening its competitiveness by developing new generation PV glazing satisfying the well-defined market demanded architectural trends. ONYX will face this main goal by developing a new family of products referred as Novel XL-BIPV glazing units, High-Mechanical Resistance PV units and high performing vision glazing based on PV thin film transparent panes (transparency over 50%) being market ready within the 24 forthcoming months. During the lifetime of the project, main challenges will be faced and overtaken by well-defined approaches. Out of the technical challenges ONYX will establish a very well defined commercialization and marketing strategy targeting global markets and main green building and architectural glazing stakeholders. ONYX ambition will be reaching the blue ocean concept. In other words, by developing BIPV products with undeniable added value achieving a clear market differentiation from our competitors leading to a greater range of coverage of the architectural glass industry, gaining the attention of prestigious end users as clients, and promoting a sense of market dominance by offering products that others cannot. The final goal will be achieving a 4,3% market share of the global BIPV business by 2020. It means to double or quadruplicate our actual share of 1% in a market that will grow from $823 million ($US) in 2014 to $2.7 billion in 2019 (30% growth/per year). On the other hand, it should be pointed out that this project proposal fits perfectly with general EU policies in terms of sustainability as for instance Energy Performance of Building Directives. In summary, by executing this project ONYX seeks to become a world leader not only in BIPV, but also in high-performing architectural glazing and Green Building Sector developing BIPV unique solutions.

Dirt on solar panels causes losses of more than €40bn p.a. and over 100Mtonnes of CO2 emission. Cleaning is expensive (up to €100/m2 depending on accessibility) and wastes water. Current self-cleaning coatings suffer from short lifetime (2-3 years), poor transparency, and high cost (over €20/m2). They are usually not cost-effective, are not widely used, and losses are accepted as part of the operation of the plant. The objective of this action is to bring to market a new product, SolarSharc, which will provide, for the first time, a transparent, durable, cost-effective and permanent self-cleaning solution for solar panels. This patented coating technology uses multi-functionalised silica nano-particles bonded strongly to the coating polymer matrix to provide a highly transparent, low cost, durable and robust self-cleaning coating. Target markets are utility scale solar and the rapidly growing (18% CAGR €26bn by 2022) Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) markets. The objectives of this 24 month action are to commercialise the SolarSharc coating and new self-cleaning BIPV modules from the current TRL6 prototype to operational demonstration (TRL9) in BIPV, certification, commercialisation and supply chain measures to deliver rapid growth. The action will be delivered by a consortium of SMEs (Opus, Onyx, Millidyne) representing the supply chain from materials to application together with specialist coatings technologists from London South Bank University and solar testing expertise from CEA. We are requesting a grant of €2.78m to bring SolarSharc to market, securing €2m of post-action financing for sales growth. Commercialisation of SolarSharc will develop new revenues for the consortium of €71m with profits of €45m cumulative over 5 years of sales, creating 243 new jobs within the consortium and providing a return on EU investment in this action of 19:1. These sales will increase output from new solar installation by 9000GWh, saving 5Mtonne of CO2 emission.

Tech4win proposes a very innovative transparent photovoltaic (PV) window concept that is based on the adoption of a tandem inspired structure combining an inorganic UV selective multifunctional coating (including UV filtering and UV selective PV functionalities), with an organic IR selective PV device. This will allow fully exploiting the IR efficiency and transparency potential of organic based solutions together with the robustness and stability of inorganic thin film concepts, combining sustainable and industrial compatible technologies with demonstrated potential for cost reduction, and avoiding the use of critical raw materials to ensure sustainable mass deployment. This “tandem inspired structure” will be able to generate on-site renewable energy (PCE ≥ 10%, with a long term goal ≥ 12%) guaranteeing a high-transparency degree (AVT ≥ 60% with a long term goal ≥ 70%, and CRI ≥ 70) and all by a competitive manufacturing costs. This novelty lies precisely in the capacity to protect the most active PV layer (IR selective organic solar cell) through the filtering of UV radiation, extending the lifetime of the PV hybrid device to ≥ 10 years (with a long term goal ≥ 25 years). To fulfil these objectives, a very well balanced multi-sectorial consortium comprising reference Research Centers in the different PV technologies involved in the window concept, together with high-tech European Companies from different sectors including relevant stakeholders involved in the value chain (Organic materials, Industrial Equipment developers, PV module producers and BIPV system manufacturers). This scenario constitutes an excellent business opportunity to satisfy the growing BIPV market to commercialize a unique cost-effective solar window solution, fully feasible as an active product capable to reach a challenging combination of efficiency, transparency and lifetime, with the design of a “Tech4Win” roadmap to place on the market a robust solar window in approximately 10 years.

This ESPResSo-project aims to bring the novel emerging hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite-based solar cell (PSC) technology to its next maturity level. In recent years (see Figure 1), this solution-processable solar technology has reached cell efficiency values rivalling those of established thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technology (CIGS, CdTe), even approaching crystalline Si (c-Si) records. The challenge is now to transfer this unprecedented progress from its cell level into a scalable, stable, low-cost technology on module level. The consortium brought together here has alternative materials, insights in novel cell concepts and architectures, and the processing know-how and equipment at hand to overcome these barriers and realize following global objective: Demonstrate a highly efficient (>17%) perovskite-based 35x35cm² module architecture that shows long-term (>20 years) reliable performance as deduced from IEC-compliant test conditions. This module is to be produced with industry-relevant low CAPEX manufacturing techniques validating a potential electricity cost as low as 0.05€/kWh in Southern Europe. Installing an actual building-integrated facade element will validate the potential contribution of this technology to the future European energy supply system. Additionally, prototyping advanced, arbitrary-shaped module architectures with specific materials and process combinations will emphasize that new highly innovative applications like on flexible substrates or with high semi-transparency are well accessible on mid- to longer-term with this very promising thin-film PV technology.