The Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) will join forces with leading European industries, academia, and research centers in an international collaboration to develop carbon-neutral technologies.
KIER has been officially selected by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Program as part of a consortium to pioneer high-performance flexible tandem solar cell technology and will begin joint research to bring innovation to carbon-neutral technologies.
The consortium includes 13 institutions from industrial, academic, and research organizations in Europe, including the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB) in Berlin, part of the Helmholtz Institute, Germany’s largest state-funded research organization. It held a kick-off meeting in Innsbruck, Austria on Jan. 17 and 18 to discuss specific research strategy directions.
The consortium’s Solmates project will run for three years starting from December of last year with the aim of developing ultra-lightweight flexible solar cells that simultaneously overcome the efficiency limitations of conventional single-junction solar cells and limited application environments.
The core of the project is the development of ultra-lightweight flexible multi-junction solar cells. The researchers will focus on a structure that sequentially stacks copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin films and perovskite thin films to achieve ultra-high efficiency. In the case of perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells, which are being widely studied throughout the world, an ultra-high efficiency of more than 30 percent has already been achieved by leading institutions including HZB. However, they have not been achieved with ultra-lightweight flexible thin films, so experts expect that this project will realize ultra-high efficiency.
KIER has world-class flexible CIGS thin-film solar cell technology and perovskite solar cell technology. It has also achieved high efficiency of 24.5 percent with a four-terminal perovskite and a CIGS tandem solar cell. In addition, the lab’s excellent research achievements in the field of photovoltaics have been reported many times through prominent overseas media outlets such as PV Magazine, and its technology has been recognized globally. The KIER has decided to participate in the consortium at the request of the consortium.
In particular, HZB which is also participating in the consortium, has been accumulating partnerships with KIER for the past 10 years in areas such as thin-film solar cells and lightweight solar cells for space through manpower exchanges and joint publication of papers. It will also collaborate with the consortium to develop lower cell advancement and upper cell stacking technology.