The event aims to advance the long-term quality of Europe’s solar projects.
Our CEO Walburga Hemetsberger opened the conference with Markus Elsaesser, CEO of Solar Promotion GmbH, highlighting how: "The solar industry is really beginning to flex its muscles…In order to further support our extraordinary growth, we need to engage with those that are key to our future success on quality assurance."
Following this, our Business Analyst Benjamin Clarke moderated an insightful session on developing an integrated approach to lifecycle quality. During the discussion, Stefan Veit, Head of Product and Quality Management Electrical Engineering from TÜV SÜD, emphasised that; "To ensure quality over the whole lifecycle, you need expertise, experience, and trust."
In the afternoon, our Director of Market Intelligence Michael Schmela, presented our latest EU Market Outlook figures; "We reached another record in 2023! We hit 56 GW solar installed in the EU last year, marking the most annual solar installations in the EU to date, 40% higher than the 40 GW installed in 2022."
At the end of our first day, we launched our new ‘End-of-Life Management: Best Practice Guidelines’, which provides a complete overview for handling end-of-life solar panels, and on how solar companies can comply with mandatory requirements.
We kicked off day two, with an interactive session looking at the opportunities for improving efficiency with AI. European Technology and Innovation Platform (ETIP-PV) Vice-Chair, David Moser, and Head of the Photovoltaic Energy System Research group, at the Institute for Renewable Energy (Eurac Research); "We believe that AI will really reshape the solar landscape, bringing new opportunities but also threats."
Finally, our Senior Technical Advisor Catarina Augusto moderated a workshop on maintaining grid stability, emphasising; "We need to future-proof the grid and strengthen system flexibility...there are 1,000 GW of solar projects waiting to be connected to the grid."
TRUST-PV organised two sessions event, looking at the testing and assessing the market readiness of digital solar technologies, and preventive mitigation measures for more accurate PV plant design. SolarPower Europe is a consortium member of this 4-year research Horizon 2020 funded project, which intends to improve the performance and reliability of solar power plants.
ETIP-PV organised a workshop reviewing the EU's Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) in breakout groups, examining how the SRIA can be shaped to find solutions around quality assurance, the bankability of solar, and much more. ETIP-PV is the solar PV sector's representation to the European Commission.
Thank you to our co-organisers Intersolar, Solar Promotion GmbH, and Conexio-PSE; to TRUST-PV; and the UNEF Spanish Solar Association, for supporting the event, and to all of our event sponsors.
We look forward to seeing you next year, and continuing our discussions on everything quality assurance.
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