EUPI-PV Conference 2026 - Solar PV Innovation: Investing to Deliver a Secure and Competitive EU

Conference highlights are available in our Press Release!

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The conference will bring together representatives from the PV industry, research community, and policymaking institutions to discuss the pivotal role of solar PV innovation in strengthening Europe’s competitiveness, security, and strategic autonomy. Against the backdrop of evolving industrial and competitiveness priorities, discussions will focus on how investment in solar PV innovation — a cornerstone technology of the future energy system — can contribute to Europe’s goals of energy independence and reinforced industrial leadership.

A central theme of the conference will be the tangible impact of upcoming European regulatory frameworks on these broader objectives. In particular, participants will examine the revision of the FP10 and ETS frameworks, recognised as key regulatory instruments for integrating cutting-edge innovation into the European solar PV market. The conference will assess how these frameworks can support the EU’s ambition to build a secure, competitive, and resilient energy system while strengthening Europe’s global leadership in clean technologies and safeguarding its economic and strategic interests through continued international cooperation.

Aligned with the mission of EUPI-PV to promote innovation and accelerate market uptake across the solar PV sector, the conference will also address one of the sector’s key challenges: bridging the gap between public research and innovation (R&I) programmes and market access along the PV value chain. Discussions will provide insights into improving the investment risk profile of emerging PV innovations and facilitating their transition from research to commercial deployment.

Conference Programme:

9:00-9:30 – Welcome & registration

9:30-10:30 – Opening Session

Rutger Schlatmann - Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin, Chairman ETIP PV, EUPI-PV Partnership Board chair

Krzysztof Kuik - Director Clean Planet, DG RTD European Commission

Adel el Gammal - Secretary General, EERA

Simon Bennett - Head of Energy Innovation, IEA

10:30-11:30 – EUPI-PV Project session

Paola Mazzucchelli - Coordinator, CIRCE, presenting Sunvibe Project

Benoit Bidaine - Strategic Program Officer, CE+T Group, presenting IN.SPIRE

Øyvind Nielsen - CZ-Tech AS, presenting EuroCz

Delfina Munoz - CEA, Vice-Chair, ETIP PV, presenting aLLEGRO

11:30-12:30 – Session 1: ETIP PV Vision 2050 — "The Solar Era: Imagining Europe's Energy and Economy for 2050"

Exploring the pathway to accomplish the ETIP PV Vision to 2050, in light of mounting challenges to strategic autonomy and competitiveness, and how key policies such as FP10 can guide to the right pathway. The session will focus on the articulation between long term perspectives for PV technology development and short term measures to guarantee competitiveness. 

Moderator: Delfina Munoz - CEA,Vice-Chair, ETIP PV

Speakers:

Ivan Gordon - Chair, EERA JP PV 

Pia Alina Lange - Trinasolar

Lucas Weiss - Voltec 

Maria Getsiou - Policy Officer, European Commission 

12:30-13:30 – Lunch break

13:30-15:00 – Session 2: What does it take to run a power system with photovoltaics at its core? 

If one were to design from scratch a power system that runs entirely on renewables, it would no doubt look very differently from the current one. Yet despite the fact the photovoltaics alone was the largest single source of electricity in the EU in June 2025, technical and market measures to further its “integration” in the system still rely on the implicit assumption that it is a marginal source, making the electricity market particularly exposed to external disruption in energy import supply chains. This mismatch creates a risk for the stability of the system, and is a challenge for the economics of PV. The conference will challenge the assumption to offer future-proof directions for the system. This session will notably explore the new parket roles and services of solar PV and storage systems, relevant grid protection and dynamic operations to implement and PV contribution to grid resilience and robustness. 

Moderator: Pierre-Jean Alet - CSEM

Speakers:

Daniel Pombo - Hybrid power plants & systems, EPRI

Walburga Hemetsberger - CEO, SolarPower Europe

Ignacio Ansejo - Policy Officer, European Commission

15:00-15:30 – Coffee break

15:30-17:00 – Session 3: Bankable by Design: How Funding Innovation in Technology and Trust will Define Solar's Economic Future

Reliability is the missing financial infrastructure. Investors price uncertainty, which means that financing is more expensive for PV plants which cannot guarantee an output, making reliability a crucial factor of bankability. Every innovation that reduces performance uncertainty directly reduces the risk premium and unlocks cheaper capital. For the PV sector where new technologies continuously enter the market to replace or add to existing ones, it is crucial to provide clear signals to investors as to the reliability of these innovations in order to allow them to scale up. This is the direct line between R&D and bankability.

But innovation in solar is not only technical, it is also social. Market data tells us we are unambiguously in the solar era, yet mainstream media and public communication have not caught up to this reality. This narrative gap carries a real cost: a weak or contested social license to operate translates into permitting delays, community opposition, and political volatility, the same uncertainty that investors ultimately price as risk. Just as reliability data de-risks the technology, a robust social license de-risks the environment in which these long-lived assets must operate. Bankability rests on both: demonstrable technical performance and durable public trust.

This session will explore how new technologies come to market and demonstrate their reliability and bankability, and how the sector can close the gap between market reality and public perception to earn the trust that long-lived investments depend on.

Moderator: David Moser - Managing Director, Becquerel Institute, Vice-chair, ETIP PV

Speakers:

Christian Breyer - LUT University

Massimo  Mazzer - Italian National Research Council

Greg Arrowsmith - Secretary General, EUREC

Arnulf Jaeger Waldau - JRC

Sara Mirbagheri Golroodbari  - University of Utrecht

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