Production technologies for solar photovoltaics beyond the state-of-the-art (EUPI-PV Partnership)

Expected Outcome:

The REPowerEU plan and the EU Solar Energy Strategy introduced targets for the deployment of solar PV amounting to 600 GWac by 2030. Complying with these targets will be crucial for the European Union to reach its climate targets and free itself from import dependency on fossil fuels and the costs this imposes on Europe’s competitiveness in terms of high energy prices. The Solar Strategy also introduces a target, which has been enshrined into the Net-Zero Industry Act, to re-consolidate the European solar manufacturing sector and scale up European manufacturing capacity across the entire value chain to at least 40% of the EU’s annual deployment needs, or 30 GW of annual capacity by 2030. Innovation is particularly important in the solar PV sector, which is characterised by a short technology cycle, where new technologies become mainstream in only a few years. Novel technologies offer therefore the opportunity to innovative start-ups and scale-ups to manufacture and put on the market competitive and efficient PV products, strengthening the resilience of the EU PV value chain thus reducing excessive dependencies and increasing security. Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Increase the potential for commercialisation of innovative PV technologies creating a competitive technological know-how for the European PV industrial base;
• Contribute to the objectives of the EU Solar PV Industry Alliance;
• Support the execution of the solar energy joint research and innovation agenda.

Scope:

Proposals are expected to demonstrate

• Solar cells/modules with conversion efficiencies beyond those commercially available and degradation/reliability and performance at least on par with the most reliable commercially available technologies;
• A multi-MWp-ready resilient, energy efficient, defect-free production technology for cells/modules;
• Production equipment & pilot line, including digitalised and automated processing.

Whenever the expected exploitation of project results entails developing, creating, manufacturing and marketing a product or process, or in creating and providing a service, the plan for the exploitation and dissemination of results must include a strategy for such exploitation. Proposals will present a plan for the exploitation and dissemination of results which should include a strong business case and sound exploitation strategy. The exploitation plan should include preliminary plans for scalability, commercialisation, and deployment (feasibility study, business plan) indicating the possible funding sources to be potentially used (in particular the Innovation Fund). This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership for Innovation in Photovoltaics (EUPI-PV). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on the results to the European Partnership for Innovation in Photovoltaics (EUPI-PV) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs. Technology Readiness Level - Technology readiness level expected from completed projects Activities are expected to achieve TRL 7 by the end of the project – see General Annex B. Activities may start at any TRL.

Submissions open on 03 December 2026.

Part of call HORIZON-CL5-2027-02

Type of action: HORIZON Innovation Actions

Programme period: 2021 - 2027

Priorities: DigitalAgenda, PART-COPROGR, AI, RePowerEU

"> General conditions

1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout

described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes.

Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System.

2. Eligible Countries

described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide .

3. Other Eligible Conditions

If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used).

described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion

described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes.

5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds

are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes.

5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes

are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual .

5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement

described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexe