Partners

The EUROSUNMED consortium brings together leading groups from academia (HU, AU, UM5a, AUI, CNESTEN), government research organizations (CNRS, CENER, SINTEF, MAScIR), agencies, societies and private research centres (EUREC, E-MRS, MASEN, IK4-TEKNIKER) as well as industry (TURBODEN, NVE) in an international research project. The constituent groups of the EUROSUNMED consortium are from five European countries and two Mediterranean countries. The consortium is also multidisciplinary, comprising physicists, engineers and materials scientists. Each of the groups dealing with photovoltaics, concentrated solar power and storage or grid integration has its own unique area of expertise and they are all highly complementary in their approaches. For example, the EUROSUNMED consortium brings together scientists of the leading CNRS and SINTEF groups in Europe, in order to develop innovative approaches in the field of thin film based photovoltaics together with scientists from Morocco. As a matter of fact, CNRS (composed of ICube, IPCMS, PROMES and CEMTHI) and SINTEF have high competence in thin film silicon solar cells while UM5a and MAScIR are specialized in chlacogenide solar cells and plasmonics. The combination of such competences intend to form tandem solar cells (chalcogenide layers on silicon thin films and coated with metallic nanoparticles) aiming at high conversion efficiencies. Similar examples can be found for the two other energy areas investigated in EUROSUNMED.

Thus, all developed technologies in EUROSUNMED will be carried out in strong collaborations between the partners, and the transfer of knowledge will be insured by many short or long stays, exchanges during schools and workshops thanks to the strong experience of the E-MRS, which has been organizing such events for over 30 years. The testing and validation (demonstration) of the produced components within the consortium will be developed in close collaboration with the MPC members of the Consortium, namely UM5a and HU with complete involvement of other research centres (MAScIR, IK4, etc.) and industries (Turboden, NVE). Two of the participants in the Consortium, namely EUREC and MASEN, are agencies that are lobbying and coordinating different projects dealing with Renewable energies in Europe and Morocco respectively. Their expertise is highly valuable to set a comprehensive and solid roadmap for further development of RE in both sides of the Mediterranean Sea.

To sum up, the EUROSUNMED Project will not only be a leading network to develop science and technology and to train top-class scientists, it will also establish and tighten contacts between the researchers, the partner research groups and industry, which will be of great benefit for Europe’s excellence in PV, CSP and Grid fields as well as for the development of the MPCs researchers/engineers competences in these domains. This Consortium is composed of consolidating as well as of established scientists, who work jointly on fields which show rapid development, reflected by the number of conferences organized and talks delivered at different places in the world. This project will strengthen their collaborations, and foster further joint research and education. Our goal is to keep contact with the researcher’s fellows after completion of this project and to involve them in future European networking activities.