Current recycling practices for Photovoltaic (PV) waste modules are unrefined and recover low volume and low value materials. To be economical and sustainable the recycling of PV waste needs to efficiently recover all of the material constituents at a quality suitable for the reuse in new PVs, with minimal impact. APOLLO will create a circular approach to link legacy recycling, future production and future recycling. A pilot line will be demonstrated and used to process an input of 40 tonnes of PV waste which will be recycled, resulting in enough reclaimed materials for 1 tonne of remanufactured silicon and 30 exemplar PV modules. Incoming modules will be streamed by glass composition, enabling batch recovery of high-quality glass, to be used for new solar-grade glass. A novel continuous ‘sonification’ technique, (ultrasonically excited etchant) will rapidly separate silicon, silver, copper and other metals in a sequence along a pipe-based process. Used liquid etchants will be recycled in a closed loop resulting in low waste, small footprint. Further, recovered silicon will be refined to a purity suitable for new PV-grade ingot growth. The objective is to deliver purified silicon with a minimum purity of 99.9999%. Multiple innovations increase the percentage weight recovery from 18% to 93%. APOLLO will prove the suitability of the recycled silicon by growing new ingots, manufacturing solar cells and then new PV modules. 20 PERC-based modules, 10 Tandem modules and 30sqm of single junction perovskite cells will be made. These modules will incorporate new designs, materials and manufacturing methods, and be designed for disassembly and recycling. Blockchain-based Digital Product Passports (DPPs) for PV will be designed and implemented as well as an online marketplace for reused, remanufactured and/or recycled PV components. DPPs provide secure and trustworthy data for the life of the product and aid recycling by supplying material, hazards and history on request.

PV4Plants boosts the energy-agricultural synergy of agriPV technologies to enhance growth conditions and increase land-use efficiency, crop yield and renewable energy generation. This is achieved by optimising the light transmission of PV panels through cutting edge nanoparticles spraying on the PV glass surface. PV4Plants system is specifically designed to meet healthy harvesting and to be adaptable to different climatic conditions and crop varieties that will be demonstrated in 3 highly replicable demo sites in Turkey, Spain and Denmark. PV4Plants optimises the system parameters (panels tilt, irrigation level, amount of fertilisers, etc) based on a multi-indicator real-time monitoring system that allows a continuous improvement of the microclimate underneath the agriPV panels to increase crop health and yield. Recyclability and reutilization of components and materials both for the manufacturing and End of Life of the PV4Plants system are central aspects of the project. The PV4Plants system will be certificated through the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), compliance with ISO 14021 and the Sustainability Excellence Label by UNEF. Finally, PV4Plants will boost its market penetration and uptake through innovative farmers' engagement strategies to enhance their acceptance and trust in innovative agriPV systems; new financing schemes and business models to improve investment performance and through a set of policy recommendations that will be developed together with public authorities to create new mechanism designed to accelerate the uptake of agriPV systems in Europe.

The IBC4EU project will develop cost effective and sustainable bifacial interdigitated back contact (IBC) solar cell and module technology on pilot line level. Based on business cases from the whole value chain – ingot, wafer, cell and module – we will demonstrate that IBC technology is the most promising choice for a fast launch of GW scale PV production in the EU. Cost competitiveness not only against future heterojunction (HJT) and Tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) technology but also present-day PERC and PERC technology will be demonstrated for the polyZEBRA and POLO IBC cell designs. To reach this goal, cost-effective production equipment will be developed and eco-design approaches will be employed to reduce the need for scarce materials such as silicon metal and silver and to maintain indium-free design. Pilot lines, interlinked on all levels of production, will help to reach GW scale mass production not only on cell but also on ingot, wafer and module level until 2030. The advantage of the chosen IBC technology is that it is based on existing production technology. Thus, the project will focus on improving existing processing steps on already available equipment, introducing some novel equipment to reduce the cost of ownership, and employing Industry 4.0 solutions for predictive maintenance, quality control and traceability. The feasibility of the chosen technologies and the innovative products will be evaluated by business-related parameters as well as performance characteristics which will be tested according to the relevant standards and in demo sites. The environmental impact will be monitored closely and eco-design approaches will be used to reduce the CO2 footprint, increase the resource efficiency and recyclability and improve in terms of circularity potential.

SolarHub’s overall objective is to strengthen connections between and scale-up 5 Greek and Turkish solar energy innovation ecosystems as a single, hybrid, cross-border, and interconnected Solar Energy Excellence Hub with an emphasis on agriculture applications. SolarHub's 4 Specific Objectives (SOs) are explicitly framed by the call's 5 Core Components and target the call's Expected Outcomes and the destinations Expected Impacts. These SOs are to: 1. Co-develop a Hub Strategy and a Joint Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda 2. Execute a diverse set of complementary interventions, engaging all players of the quadruple helix to support R&I and accelerate commercialization 3. Implement joint R&I activities to co-develop 4 pre-designs of diverse solar energy solutions 4. Maximize the project’s impacts through Dissemination, Exploitation, and Communication activities carefully tuned to actively engage all players of the quadruple helix To achieve these objectives, a diverse and complementary set of measures are proposed that include 1. Creation of relevant R& I strategies & policies 2. Networking between SolarHub & stakeholders 3. Multi-level engagement & training 4. Combination of R&I infrastructures for synergies 5. Creation of targeted joint programmes and linkages between the 2 countries based on sound technological solutions 6. Communicating the above to all major stakeholders in the targeted regions 7. Exploiting the positive results from all the above to setup a sustainable collaborative initiative after the end of the project. SolarHub's consortium contains 21 partners (7 Academic, 9 Business, 3 Public Authorities, and 2 Societal Actors) that are well-balanced between Academia and Business, and fully completes the quadruple helix. SolarHub is a 4 year project with 5 carefully designed Work Packages that efficiently exploit the consortium's diverse knowledge and expertise to develop Green solutions to today's Societal Challenges.