Tom Aernouts and Jef Poortmans, R&D Manager of Thin-Film PV, imec and imec Fellow and the Program Director of the Energy activities of imec03.31.21
In a highly competitive global PV market, Europe remains at the forefront of research and development into next-generation technologies and systems, such as thin-film photovoltaics.
Thin-film PV technology has been around since the mid-20th Century (in solar-powered calculators, for example). They were rightly considered the lower-efficiency, yet cheaper, the equivalent of conventional Si-PV for a long time. Meanwhile, thanks to multi-junction devices, their efficiencies are competing with (and at lab-scale even surpassing) those of Si-PV. For example, thin-film PV technologies, such as copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), have become an established solution in iconic buildings with building-integrated PV (BIPV).
Over the past decades, imec has been a key player on the forefront of technology innovations that have brought thin-film PV to its current state-of-the-art and on the verge of conquering the market.
Thin-film PV is already being used for
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