Future Photovoltaics, Volume 7
"OPV will probably never outperform inorganic PV cells in performance and lifetime. But their low cost, ease of processing, flexibility and usability under varying lighting conditions will earn OPV a rightful place in the overall PV market. Exercises such as these also illustrate how the improvements of these devices have become a global exercise..." - Jef Poortmans, Department Director Solar and Organic Technologies, imec

Future Photovoltaics, Volume 6
"It is argued that by 2020, PV will be a mainstream electric generation option, garnering a significant fraction of the new and replacement-generation market. Aside from ongoing module innovation, major areas of emphasis during this period will include increased emphasis on reducing BOS costs, and improved technology for grid integration..." - Dr. Richard Swanson, SunPower Corporation

Future Photovoltaics, Volume 5
"A process historian collects real-time data from tools and control systems, electronically time-stamps the data, compresses and stores the data, and provides ways to query the data for real-time monitoring and analysis. Process historians collect a few key parameters about each variable collected: variable name, value, time stamp and quality indicator. Most commercially available process historians can collect..." - Vladimir Garner, GE Intelligent Platforms

Future Photovoltaics, Volume 4
"With crystalline silicon solar cells currently being the most prevalent type of photovoltaic technologies (and for the predictable future), the production cost should still be substantially lowered to get to grid parity and beyond. There are numerous ways to reduce production costs, ranging from lower-temperature processing and cheaper materials to higher-throughput systems and improved efficiencies. Here the idea is to embark on the route toward ever-thinner cells. This serves the purpose of cutting cost by reducing the amount of silicon needed, especially beneficial in view of a predicted shortage of solar-grade silicon in the (near) future." – K. Baert, J. Govaerts, J. Poortmans - imec

Future Photovoltaics, Volume 3
"During the past decade, researchers have slowly but steadily improved the efficiency of organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells. The consensus is that there is still much room for improvement, and that the threshold for widespread, commercial use will be reached in the coming years. One possible method of making OPV cells more efficient is to create tandem cells – stacks of OPV cells that each absorb part of the sunlight’s spectrum. Various research labs and companies are working on these tandem cells, trying to find the efficiency sweet spot among all possible material combinations and interconnection schemas." – Jan Provoost - imec

Future Photovoltaics, Volume 2
"One can argue that the technology diversity of photovoltaics is a strength. It makes PV development very robust: If one option fails, there are always 10 others left. It is not a question of whether PV will be successful, but merely in which form(s). However, diversity may also be seen as a (potential) weakness. It leads to dilution of research and development efforts, and confuses many people" – Wim C. Sinke , ECN Solar Energy

Future Photovoltaics, Volume 1
"Many things have to be accomplished before photovoltaics become a ubiquitous technology: reducing the amount of necessary high-cost semiconductor material, developing highly efficient cells, achieving long-term durability and reliability, using low-cost packaging substrates, creating scalable high-speed assembly processes, and establishing fast methods to install and wire the grid-connected circuitry." - Vipin Gupta, Sandia National Labs