Abstract

AbstractThe use of photovoltaic technology is crucial to meet Europe´s ambitious climate and energy objectives set for 2030. To facilitate this shift, technological innovation is a key prerequisite, and the provision of public funding for related research and development is an important trigger. For this study, a vast set of data has been collected to explore how the EU and its Member States, plus Norway and Turkey, have so far invested in photovoltaic research and development. Based on historic values and actual trends, the authors additionally outline the possible future evolution of the investigated public funding. The study aims to shed light on the development of funding from the early 1970s until 2017 (most recent data available) and provide a forecast for 2030 (based on a business-as-usual scenario). According to results, at the national level, public funding had a considerable and steady rise after the OPEC´s oil embargo in 1973, reaching a first peak in the mid-1980s. The authors predict that, according to the most recent trends, by 2030, these will surpass 200 million € annually. In comparison, EU funding has steadily increased since its inception in the late 1980s up until 2007, but its evolvement is distinctively different, evidencing high fluctuations. The cumulative stock is also examined. National sources outweigh EU programs by a factor of almost five, and the stock should surpass 7 billion € by 2030. Based on the analysis and related insights, recommendations are elaborated on how the development of funding could inform policy strategies and actions to support research and development for photovoltaic technology.

Highlights

  • Why is facilitating investment into research and development of the photovoltaics (PV) sector important for the EU? Renewable energy sources have an important role to play at the global level— in Europe

  • To potentially inform the development of such targets, as an initial step, this study focuses on tracking all public investments made in the EU, plus Norway and Turkey (Iceland and Switzerland have not been taken into consideration because they are not members of the SET-Plan PV Temporary Working Group (Hünnekes et al 2017), aiming to address these research questions: 1. What level of PV research and development (R&D) funding has been provided so far by countries covered by the study, and how much is expected in the decade?

  • The Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) database was used as the main source of information for EU funding (EC 2019)

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Summary

Introduction

Renewable energy sources have an important role to play at the global level— in Europe. The combination of cost reduction, increased international competitiveness and continuous technological innovation (IRENA 2017) has enabled the accelerated growth of PV capacity in the EU since 2007 (Fig. 1). This growth coincided with a growing market and an increase in electricity consumption in the EU of about 24% from 1990 to 2016 (EC 2018b), resulting in a year-over-year increase of approximately 0.84%. The trend is in part driven by the growing appetite of the European population to increase its level of comfort by using electrical devices, which at the same time can be highly energy intensive (Pezzutto et al 2016) and to partly offset energy efficiency improvements (EC 2012a)

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