The quality assurance in the photovoltaic industry is yet in its infancy, requiring both underpinning science and trained personnel to reduce costs of energy. An unmet industrial requirement is an accelerated, and operating environment specific, service life time and energy yield assessment. SOLAR-TRAIN will qualify ESRs in the field of PV durability as part of a highly innovative, multi-disciplinary project meeting industry requirements. The objective is to develop novel, validated models for the service life time and energy prediction of PV modules and systems. The elements to this puzzle are researched in the frame of 14 PhD projects with individual areas of focus, such as (a) climatic degradation factors, (b) system analytics, (c) material (polymer) parameters, (d) service life & energy models, (e) linking production to performance and (f) performance enhancement by improved O&M. Commercial and test samples will be produced and tested in the distributed measurement campaign during this project. They will be exposed to state-of-the-art and to-be-developed stress cycles to allow a validated link of degradation to stresses, production methods, materials and methods of deployment. Accelerated and lower cost test cycles for the assessment of innovative materials and module developments will be delivered. The project is integrated both in terms of research as well as training. This inter-sectoral approach provides excellent theoretical and technical background as well as immersion in different business sectors and career mentoring, allowing ESRs to build up a sustainable professional network across Europe. For a most effective cross-sectoral training, the project’s beneficiaries and partners represent the entire value chain, from materials developers / manufacturers through to operators and insurance companies. SOLAR-TRAIN will deliver on the targets stated in Issue Paper No. 2 of the SET Plan to maintain and strengthen PV leadership in Europe.

SUPERNOVA will embrace existing proven successful concepts (breaking silos and innovating in sector where R&D&I are usually not a common target) and will integrate them with further disruptive key elements: - O&M and grid friendly design of PV plants thanks to advanced solutions in software for the early design and engineering phase to go beyond yield maximisation. Severe weather events are increasing in frequency and bespoke planning and dedicated mitigation measures must be put in place; - Multilayer approach where standalone solutions can be hybridised and connected in interoperable digital platforms; - Avoid a data tsunami effect on stakeholders by leveraging on AI to manage and govern the immense quantity of data and provide solutions using Instruction Tuned Large Language Models; - Share data with a larger basis to generate value for the data provider and for the data user and study how the process could be also monetized; - Develop solutions related to the use of automated processes that can replace the operator's work in data and image collection, increase the intrinsic value of O&M contracts, free up human resources for data analysis itself and therefore the creation of added value in new services ; - Develop solutions that exploits all the previous key elements towards condition monitoring of PV components in view of circular economy (for e.g., reuse), drive optimal procurement for future projects, provide valuable insights for better services (for e.g. insurance) and ultimately increase profitability. Combining these features SUPERNOVA will innovate in: O&M and grid friendly design including mitigation measures for severe weather conditions, tools and components for multi aspect sensing, robotic solutions and their hybridisation, data fusion to generate AI based controlled insights explosion via federated PV asset management, classify PV components for re-use and create a PV data space.

CLIMINVEST is joint effort of sustainability experts and finance/investing experts to improve the bankability of climate adaptation solutions. In this direction, the project will develop, integrate and validate tools and techniques that will empower climate adaptation stakeholders to develop “bankable-by-design” (BbD) projects with a positive ROI, including projects that are continually assessed in order to proactively identify and remedy issues that can affect their bankability. Moreover, CLIMINVEST will facilitate private investors to assess them, and to include them in their portfolios and ESG strategies. Based on the project’s BbD framework, local/regional governments and operators of climate-adaptation solutions will greatly benefit from CLIMINVEST techniques and blueprints for developing and deploying bankable solutions that can be integrated with broader projects and deliver co-benefits in conjunction with other climate mitigation efforts. Furthermore, CLIMINVEST will provide investors with risk assessment and ESG reporting tools for projects with climate adaptation elements towards lowering the barriers that hinder their engagement in climatic adaptation projects. CLIMINVEST will develop and offer a marketplace of bankable climate adaptation projects and solutions, which will boost the discoverability of “best practice” solutions, while also facilitating their replication, repurposing and wider use. The project will build a vibrant ecosystem of interested stakeholders around this marketplace, including local/regional governments, sustainability experts, private investors, and policy makers. The project’s platform and associated ecosystem will serve as a basis for the exploitation, sustainability and wider use of the project’s results. In this direction, the project will devise and validate models for the monetization of services of the project’s marketplace.

TRUST-PV will demonstrate increase in performance and reliability of PV components (e.g. module O&M friendly design, inverter enabled O&M solutions, aftermarket coatings, extended testing beyond standard) and PV systems (e.g. more accurate yield models and assessment, data-driven mitigation measures from monitoring and advanced field inspection, reliability of novel system concepts such as floating PV) in large portfolios of distributed and/or utility scale PV. The TRUST-PV results will be tested and demonstrated from fab to field and all data gathered along the value chain will flow into a decision support system platform with enhanced decision-making using AI. The innovation at component level in TRUST-PV will be driven by the needs of stakeholders operating in a later stage of a PV project, i.e. Asset managers, EPC and O&M operators. TRUST-PV PV modules will thus become O&M friendly and inverter will enable rapid and cost-effective field inspection. The innovation at system level will fully exploit the digitalisation of the PV sector by linking 3D design with BIM concepts, developing more accurate models for yield assessments, and closing the gap between performance and failure detection through monitoring and field inspection. The innovation at the point of connection is based on the deployment of tailored strategies for the residential sector (better observability of performance with cost-effective monitoring solution, use of storage to enable renewable energy communities) and the utility sector (e.g. combination of advanced forecasting with storage and regulation through power plant controllers) with the final aim of improving the hosting capacity and increase stability. Finally, in TRUST-PV we envision a path of circular economy which enhances disposed components/material recovery for further use in the industry, to support progressive steps of plant repowering, aimed at increasing their production and lifetime without requiring additional land.