L R AS Published on Saturday 5 September 2020 - n° 330 - Categories:Asia, R&D

South Korea launches a major research and development programme

South Korea is launching a major research and development programme to develop high efficiency products such as panels based on tandem solar cells. Public investment could reach $160 million for tandem cell research over the next five years. The goal is to achieve an efficiency of

26% in 2023 and even 35% in 2030. Another $2.1 million will be used to test TOPCon, heterojunction and solar tandem technologies. A third budget of $8.2 million will be devoted to Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) and floating photovoltaics.

Korea adopted new standards last May (comparable to those in France) to take into account the carbon footprint and the price agreed by developers for the electricity produced.

In September 2019, researchers at the Ulsan Institute of Science and Technology in Ulsan, South Korea, demonstrated a new method of manufacturing perovskite-sur-silicon tandem devices, using a transparent conductive adhesive to combine the two cells. The scientists developed devices with a proven efficiency of 19.4%, and are proposing strategies to surpass 24% using existing technology.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/09/03/south-korea-bets-on-tandem-solar-technologies/

PV Magazine of 3 September

Editor's note Korea's budgetary effort is also there to prepare for the future, to find innovative products, to emerge in the face of Chinese products. Each country has its own budget. The scattering of the budgets of the different States is certain. The effectiveness of this attitude is very poor. It would require the collaboration of small countries, each with ambitions to face the growing monopoly of China. It is not enough to bet on the next technology, but to launch international cooperation on existing products and make them emerge in the face of the giant. Always looking for the next product is detrimental because if the efforts don't succeed, the money is lost. If the research efforts succeed, there are no more industrialists capable of using the research results. This gives the impression that we are looking for something to look for and that we forget the goal, which is to produce photovoltaic products under better conditions and at lower prices. Are we going to find out and then remedy this aberration?

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