Scope

Solar Photovoltaic (PV) technology already plays an important role as a solution for the increasing global energy demand (projected as high as 36.5 Trillion kWh by 2040 – International Energy Outlook, 2016). Markets for PV are expected to grow from ca. 100 GWp today to 300 GWp -800 GWp by 2030. It is expected that significant shares of these markets will be supplied by novel PV-technologies. It is therefore fundamentally important to combine environmentally friendly base materials with higher conversion efficiencies at the lowest possible cost in their production.

In recent years emerging photovoltaic technologies have made amazing progress. Despite this, it will be a global effort to make these technologies market-ready. The 6th International Conference on Next Generation Solar Energy (NGSE6) will be held from 6th – 8th of December 2021 in close collaboration between the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU), the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nuremberg for Renewable Energies (HI ERN), the National Renewable Energy Labs (NREL), the Erlangen Graduate School of Excellence in Optical Technologies (SAOT) and the International Research Training Group “Energy Conversion Systems: From Materials to Devices” (IGK 2495). Globally recognized experts of the PV field, coming from academia and industry, will be gathered in a “hybrid” format in order to discuss novel research, concepts, and developments in photovoltaics which will make it possible to achieve solar power conversion efficiencies approaching the thermodynamic limit.

The NGSE6 conference will be held “hybrid” – with both digital participation via video conferencing and with on-site presence. The audience will be connected digitally, the speakers are invited to Erlangen and Boulder, but can as well participate and present purely digital if Corona travel limitations are still limiting.