PV Impact’s first matchmaking event held at the EU PVSEC in Marseille on September 11th 2019 facilitated over 10 one-to-one networking meetings among representatives from industrial and research entities, specialized in silicon solar cells and modules technologies.
This event was the first of a series of matchmaking events organized by the PV Impact Consortium with the aim to impulse the execution of the SET Plan Implementation Plan for Photovoltaics. This networking experience raised interest among a large number of European entities aiming to make new connections and to find partners with whom to work on future innovation projects under EU and/or national funding schemes.
The 16 participants were selected from top-notch R&D centres, influential companies and promising start-ups along Europe. During the session they had the opportunity to pitch their project ideas among each other, in order to find common grounds of possible collaborations in line with the topic of the call, silicon PV cells and modules.
The event opened with an introduction of the PV Impact project, followed by presentations by EU and national funding mechanisms’ representatives. Sven Macko from Projektträger Jülich presented the 7th Energy Research Programme of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs; Stefan Nowak highlighted the opportunities of the Solar-ERA.NET Cofund; and Emilien Simonot presented InnoEnergy’s investment framework for projects supporting sustainable energy innovations.
Presentations were then followed by a session organized around a speed-dating format, where participants held a series of 8-minute conversations with each other. These dynamic interactions allowed them to communicate the essential information about their plans and ambitions and to identify whether the person opposite to them had an initiative they would like to be part of.
Interactions were ranked by the participants in order to identify the best project idea and the most collaborative partner. Based on this ranking, the PV Impact consortium awarded Stephan Abermann, Head of Competence Unit PV Systems at the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), Center for Energy, with the winning prize. This way, the winner will count on the consortium’s support and mentoring to look for the necessary resources and funding mechanisms to develop the project proposal.
Emiliano Corà, Coordinator of the PV Impact project stated: ‘interactions were very enriching, and we expect to obtain very positive results from the evolution of the proposals and the collaborations among participants. We have no doubt that PV Impact will bring great value to the European PV industry.’
The next PV Impact matchmaking event will take place in December during the O&M and Asset Management 2019 Conference in London, where the topic of the session will be focused on the Operation & Diagnosis of PV plants. The exact date and location of the event will be confirmed soon at www.pvimpact.eu.