The Commission published the Staff Working Document entitled ‘Solar energy joint research and innovation agenda with Member States in the context of the European Research Area’. This agenda, which aligns with the Green Deal Industrial Plan and the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), is a key action of the EU Solar Energy Strategy and highlights the important role of research and innovation to reduce the cost of existing solar energy technologies, support new technologies, and enhance their environmental and socio-economic sustainability. Setting out the current performance of solar technologies, it explains why and how to go further.
The agenda outlines several research and innovation priorities for solar photovoltaic, concentrated solar thermal and non-concentrated solar thermal technologies. Furthermore, it identifies crosscutting themes that are relevant for the solar energy sector, for example the necessity to consider the impact of climate change on solar energy technologies, or the development of new business models to facilitate the implementation of novel technical solutions.