Summary of Europe-Japan Collaborative Research on Concentrator Photovoltaics

This paper summarizes the Europe-Japan Collaborative Research Project on Concentrator Photovoltaics (CPV); NGCPV Project (a New Generation of Concentrator PhotoVoltaic cells, modules and systems. The aim of this project was to accelerate the move to very high efficiency and lower cost CPV technologies and to enhance widespread deployment of CPV systems. 7 European partners and 9 Japanese partners have contributed to such an international collaboration. The following objectives have been reached: 1) CPV cell with 3J world-record efficiency of 44.4 % by Sharp, 2) 50 KW CPV plant operation with average DC efficiency of 27.8% in Spain (since mid-2012), 3) New “Intrepid” CPV module with 31.3% have been developed, 4) Standard measurement of CPV cells has been established, 5) Fundamental researches on novel materials for CPV were also conduced.