Chairman's message
23rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conferences and Exhibitions have accompanied and supported the development of Solar electricity since 1977. Thirty years for providing the humanity with a mature technology for the replacement of fossil fuels by renewable energy, thirty years for making the dream a reality. Thousands of scientists and engineers, all over the world, have day after day improved the performances of the solar cells and modules, discovered new systems, new materials, new concepts, faced immense difficulties and finally succeeded. I am one of these scientists, with my first conference in Berlin in 1979 as a young PhD student. Now, as Chairman of the Valencia Conference, I would first like to thank all the pioneers of photovoltaics for their efforts and to welcome the new generations which are presently deeply engaged, in Europe, in Japan, in USA but also, more and more, in China, India and many countries on all continents. We can be proud of the accomplished work.
In the meantime other scientists started to warn the public about climate changes, this led to Kyoto and the follow up conferences, this was decisive to convince governments of the necessity to really engage strong concerted actions for the reduction of CO2 emissions and to promote the development of renewable energies for a sustainable world. Accelerating the development of photovoltaics at very large scale, without delay, is thus becoming an absolute necessity. We have to commit ourselves to face this ambitious challenge. Photovoltaics is not simply science, neither classical industrial development, but has to be considered as a public and strategic mission.
I am very pleased that the Valencia Conference will be an important step in this direction, by experiencing a new growth in the number of presentations and exhibits, reassembling again thousands of participants and visitors. They will see the remarkable and decisive endeavour of thin film PV industry, with various technologies as Si, CdTe and CIGS, the progresses in classical crystalline silicon technologies and the advances of new concepts. They will discover the remarkable growth of PV in our host country, Spain, supported by the passion of the people there for developing this energy resource at the large scale level. They will deliver the message that the PV community is ready for contributing in Europe to the objective of 20% of renewable energy part in 2020, and waiting for precise and ambitious milestones for this technology.
For all these reasons I would like to welcome you, representatives of the PV Solar actors and from the society, in this marvellous city of Valencia.
Dr. Daniel Lincot
Research Director at CNRS
Institute for Research and Development of Photovoltaic Energy (IRDEP), Paris, France
