SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund will bring together 15 national organisations owning and / or managing major solar power research and innovation programmes throughout Europe, covering photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP). According to the challenges addressed in the work programme on Low Carbon Energy, SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund has different objectives: • To implement a joint call on subjects of highest priority and European added value in line with the Solar Europe Industry Initiative within the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan • To pool resources and to provide critical mass for transnationally highly relevant and innovative projects • To mobilise 20 MEUR of public funding (national and EC funding), and, together with the resources provided by the private industry sector, a total of 40 MEUR. • To enhance coordination, coherence and networking between national programmes SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund will contribute to substantial cost reductions of solar power technologies, economic development of the European solar power sector and to reinforce Europe’s strong position in solar power technologies. Reducing technology cost and advancing manufacturing technologies, applications and grid / system integration are essential to increasing the deployment of solar power technologies. This way, SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund will greatly contribute to: • Acceleration of the time to market by advancing technologies • Affordable, cost-effective and resource-efficient technology solutions • Decarbonisation of the energy system • Sustainable, secure energy supply and completion of the energy internal market • Strengthening the European industrial technology base (growth and jobs in Europe SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund follows on from SOLAR-ERA.NET project and network and previous PV-ERA-NET network, taking advantage of more than ten years of ERA-NET experience and expertise from all major key stakeholders in the solar research, innovation and industry sector.

SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 will bring together 18 national and regional organisations owning and / or managing major solar power research and innovation programmes throughout Europe. They will launch a co-funded and an additional joint call mobilising some 30 MEUR of public funding to support highly innovative transnational RDI projects. SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 will contribute to substantial cost reductions of solar power technologies, to support the economic development of the European solar power sector and to reinforce Europe’s strong position in solar power technologies. Reducing technology cost, lowering the environmental impact of power production and advancing manufacturing technologies, applications and energy system integration are essential to increasing the deployment of solar power technologies as crucial element of the Low Carbon Energy strategy set out in the Energy Package. This way, SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 will strongy contribute to achieve the ambitious climate change targets, to sustainable, secure, cost-efficient energy supply and to provide growth and jobs in the solar and related industry sectors providing also a solid technological and industrial base. SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 will focus on solar power technologies covering both photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP) / solar thermal electricity (STE) according to the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan and the documents with Declaration on Strategic Targets in the context of an Initiative for Global Leadership in Photovoltaics resp. Concentrated Solar Power and their subsequent Implementation Plans being elaborated by the respective technology groups, i.e. European Technology & Innovation Platforms related Temporary Working Groups. SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 follows on from the SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund (started in 2016) and SOLAR-ERA.NET project and network running from 2012 to 2016 and previous PV-ERA-NET network, taking advantage of more than thirteen years of ERA-NET experience.

The action will set up a joint programming initiative to develop Smart, Integrated, Regional Energy Systems that enable regions and local communities to realize their high ambitions of moving towards decarbonised energy systems and at the same time link them to a secure and resilient European energy system. This shall include solutions that allow for a high proportion of renewables up to and beyond 100% in the local or regional supply. The initiative will coordinate relevant RDD programs in the involved European, associated countries and regions represented in the consortium connecting them with other funding and financing partners. It will accelerate the deployment of latest resource-efficient and decarbonising energy system solutions, thus strengthening the competitiveness in relevant markets and lerveraging sustainable structures already established by ERA-Net Smart Grids Plus . The latter is focussing on the broad involvement of a large number of countries and regions in order to implement European smart electricity grids research agendas, while the ERA-Net SG+ RegSys will build on this with a new approach, developing integrated, regional energy systems, including the full spectrum of energy carriers and infrastructures. A highly ambitious consortium will pilot new formats of collaboration with regional and local stakeholders as well as supply and demand side oriented technology policy.

The Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP) is a transnational initiative on joint RTDI programming to boost and accelerate the energy transition, building upon regional and national RTDI funding programmes. It aims to empower the energy transition and contribute to the EU’s goal of becoming the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, by pooling national and regional RDTI funding for a broad variety of technologies and system solutions required to make the transition. It will foster transnational innovation ecosystems from the very local and regional level, up to the transnational European level, thus overcoming a fragmented European landscape. The CETP is aiming to enable 70 national and regional RDTI programme owners and managers from 32 countries to align their priorities and implement annual joint calls from 2022 to 2027 (original first proposal as published by the EC on CORDIS). Actually 30 countries and 55 programme owners and managers formally participate in this Initial Grant Agreement. They also organise joint accompanying activities to enable a dynamic learning process, extract strategic knowledge (“Knowledge Community”) and maximise the impact (“Impact Network”) to accelerate the upscaling, replication and market diffusion of innovative solutions. This will foster the up-take of cost-effective clean energy technologies. The common vision of the CETP is already manifested in its Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) that has been co-created in a broad engagement process during 2020, together with the involved countries, the EU SET-Plan Implementation Workin Groups and ETIPs, all energy relevant ERA-Nets as well as the EERA joint programmes (over 500 editors, co-authors, commenters and discussants). The SRIA was endorsed together with the European Commission (DG RTD and ENER) in November 2020 . This articulates the common goal of (1) building a transnational transformative Joint Programming Platform, (2) developing and demonstrating technology and solutions for the transition of energy systems, and finally (3) building innovation ecosystems that support capacity building at all levels.