Nordic Centre of Excellence in Photovoltaics (PV)
The centre will strengthen the already formed Nordic R&D network and develop it into a centre of excellence effectively serving the fast-growing and demanding Nordic PV industry.
The overall challenge for the solar cell industry is to bring down the cost/kWh in order to become competitive with other energy resources in the future.
Currently the annual increase of the shipment of solar cells is higher than 30 % and has been between 25 and 40 % during the last decade. This large increase has mainly been stimulated by national programmes with favourable feed-in tariffs and/or subsidies of investment costs. However, in the near future there will probably be a shift from program-stimulated expansion to market driven expansion. In Japan, which has for long been the largest market for solar cells, this will be finalized next year. Subsidies will no longer be available for solar electricity installations, making cost a critical issue.
The Nordic region has in recent years experienced the introduction and fast expansion of a solar electricity industry. In order to secure the continued expansion of this industry, a strong Nordic R&D platform is required.
Key figures
Project Duration: 2007 - 2010
The total project budget is 10,6 MNOK
Nordic Energy Research contributes 8 MNOK (75 %)
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