The HighLite project was selected in the framework of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme, under the “Increase the competitiveness of the EU PV manufacturing industry” funding opportunity. A sister project of HighLite that was selected in the same call is HIPERION. In addition, the HighLite project will capitalize on the learnings of several large H2020 projects in which several members of the HighLite consortium are/were involved which are listed below.
The HIPERION (HybrId Photovoltaics for Efficiency Record using Integrated Optical techNology) project is run by a 16-member consortium with CSEM (Switzerland) as the consortium coordinator. The project has been awarded a €10.6 million grant and will run for 48 months starting in September 2019. The goal of the HIPERION consortium is to bring to industrial scale highly efficient hybrid solar modules based on the technology developed by Swiss startup Insolight.
The AMPERE (Automated photovoltaic cell and Module industrial Production to regain and secure European Renewable Energy Market) project consists of 14 members and is led by the company Enel Green Power (Italy) as project coordinator. This 36 months project started in May 2017 with a EC funding of €14.95 million. The final goal of the project is the setting-up of a 100 MW full-scale automated pilot line in production environment at the 3Sun fab, while preparing the next steps to 250 MW and GW scale as final horizon.
The NextBase (Next-generation interdigitated back-contacted silicon heterojunction solar cells and modules by design and process innovations) project consisted of a consortium of 14 partners. The project started in October 2016 with a EC funding of €3.8 million and officially finished in September 2019. The project was highly successful, recording very high efficiencies of Interdigitated Back Contacted Silicon Heterojunction (IBC-SHJ) on cell (25.4%) and module level (22 %), a variety of technical exploitable results and a technology (IBC-SHJ) which is ready for mass production as early as 2020.
The DISC (Double side contacted cells with innovative carrier-selective contacts) project was run by a 13-member consortium led by Institut für Solarenergieforschung GmbH (ISFH) from Germany. The project started in October 2016 with a EC funding of €4.7 million and officially finished in September 2019. The DISC project contributed to strengthening the PV industry in Europe, since the industry partners like Meyer Burger, Von Ardenne and Meco successfully exploited the project outcomes to their equipment and to manufacturing plant of Ecosolifer.
The CABRISS (Implementation of a CirculAr economy Based on Recycled, reused and recovered Indium, Silicon, and Silver materials for photovoltaic and other applications) project consisted of a consortium of 16 partners. The project started in June 2015 with a EC funding of €7.8 million and officially finished in May 2018.