Irish company SolarPrint is to participate in a publicly-funded European research project, Energy for a Green Society (ERG). The three-year programme, conducted under the auspices of the European Nanoelectronics Initiative Advisory Council (ENIAC), aims to achieve substantial advances in the solar energy supply chain, from sustainable harvesting to smart distribution.
The ERG programme seeks to address these requirements by improving the efficiency of solar cells, devising new harvesting techniques, reducing power-conversion losses and enhancing energy management strategies.
"This broad initiative sets to contribute to the establishment of a solid electronics design base for Europe and help create a set of technology standards for the solar energy sector," said project co-ordinator Dr Francesco Gennaro, IMS systems lab and TM power conversion staff engineer, STMicroelectronics. "Our goal is to achieve improvements along the whole supply chain, pushing the solar-cell efficiency towards 25%, reducing power conversion losses by 20%, and exceeding 90% efficiency for the overall grid."
The ERG is organised into a number of work packages spanning a total duration of 36 months. The total cost of the project is €25.7 million, partially funded through a combination of European and national grants under the rule of ENIAC-JU 2010.
Established in 2008 by Dr Mazhar Bari, Andre Fernon and Roy Horgan, SolarPrint develops technologies that convert light from any source to energy.
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