In the past 25 years, many integrated photovoltaics (IPV) products have been introduced and demonstrated. Mostly BIPV products, but more recently also IIPV and VIPV products. However, large scale deployment and massive market adoption of these technologies and products have not yet taken place. We are at the brink of a huge scale-up and capacity build-up of PV in Europe, that will have a large effect on our living environment. Therefore, it is now urgent and essential that IPV products become widely available and affordable. This is important (1) to generate solar electricity where the demand is (in the built environment) and (2) to enable multifunctional use of area and space in the built environment. Several parties in the MC2.0 consortium have more than 20 years of experience in IPV development and as such have been involved in many earlier projects and studies. We believe that the number one barrier for large scale market uptake of IPV is the high cost. Other - secondary but also important – barriers are immature sector cooperation and certification issues. The overarching ambition of the MC2.0 project is to demonstrate a cost breakthrough for IPV by means of an advanced manufacturing approach, referred to as “mass customization”. In coherence with this approach, we will contribute to solving the other identified barriers. To realize this ambition, the MC2.0 consortium brings together experts and companies on materials for PV laminates (including PV cells), on manufacturing of PV laminates, on manufacturing of IPV products and on market and application of IPV products.

The REALIZE project aims to present a carefully selected and pre-qualified portfolio of new renewable energy generation technologies to the EU Innovation Fund (IF) through proposals resulting from successfully completed Horizon projects in Renewable Energy Sources (RES). The project will support IF project promoters to win major Innovation Fund support or propose alternative funding opportunities at EU, national and local level. Intense support will be given to ten technology partners in the consortium building on their results from 15 pre-qualified Horizon projects. From these, we will prepare seven IF proposals spanning a variety of sectors: Concentrated Solar Power, wind, solar thermal and solar photovoltaics, ocean energy and biofuels as energy-producing installations and as manufacturing projects for small-, medium- and large-scale calls. Their technology will be profiled. REALIZE will also reach out to the broader renewable energy community, with conferences and written material addressing IF’s selection criteria; sharing “lessons learnt” (including with Innovation Fund’s designers) and explaining the complementarity of different public funding programmes. Deep collaboration with other projects funded under the same call topic is foreseen but not counted upon.