Dutch organization NWO has approved the third edition of the so-called Joint Solar Program III (JSPIII) aimed at the development of future generation high-efficiency solar cells. Prof. Miro Zeman and Prof. Arthur Weeber from Photovoltaic Materials and Devices group of the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) lead the JSPIII program. The program includes seven PhD projects and it is a cooperation of Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, University of Amsterdam and research institute AMOLF. The aim of the JSPIII program is to gain fundamental knowledge and develop technologies required for achieving 30% efficiency tandem devices based on crystalline silicon and thin-film perovskite solar cells.

“The JSPIII program helps us to come closer to the realization of our department’s vision”, says Prof. Zeman, head of the Electrical Sustainable Energy department at TU Delft. He continues: “A world with reliable, sustainable and affordable electricity for everyone. PV technology that generates electricity directly from solar energy delivers already the cheapest electricity in places with a high level of solar irradiation. However, to make solar electricity competitive everywhere the efficiency of solar cells has to increase and the production costs have to decrease. These are the issues we shall tackle together with our partners in the JSPIII program.”

Two PhD students will be working at TU Delft. Prof. Zeman is in charge of the Advanced architectures for hybrid tandem solar cells project. The goal of this project is to fundamentally understand, develop and demonstrate architectures of perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cell structures for obtaining maximum energy conversion efficiency. Prof. Weeber leads the High-Efficiency c-Si solar cells project. The focus of the project is to elucidate fundamental mechanisms of advanced passivating structures and integrate them in the solar cell for enabling more than 25% efficient c-Si solar cells.

The JSPIII program will run in the period between 2017-2022. The total budget of the program is 2.85 million Euro. The largest contribution of 2 million Euro comes from the NWO, 0.5 million Euro was contributed by Shell company, the rest is supported by Tempress, Levitech, Exasun and Eternal Sun. The researchers involved in the JSPIII program will also cooperate with the research institutes ECN and Solliance, which will scientifically contribute to the program as well.