Chairmen's Message

Dear Delegate,

It is our privilege and honour to invite you to participate in the 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, which will be held in Valencia, Spain. This World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion will bring together the three most important global scientific and strategic PV Conferences: the 25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, the 36th US IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference and the 20th Asia/Pacific PV Science and Engineering Conference. This unique gathering will be the leading science-to-science, business-to-business and science-to-industry forum for the global PV solar energy sector.

Certainly 2010 is a very decisive year for photovoltaic solar energy in Europe. The European Union has set the goal of providing 20% of its energy consumption using renewable sources by the end of this decade. This would translate probably into around 35% of renewable electricity. Whether PV will reach a 3%, 5% or even 12% share will be influenced by the decisions of the Member States on the implementation of their renewable energy action plans, which will have been submitted to the European Commission end of June this year. Similarly ambitious plans are being brought forward in the US, Japan (Revision of Basic Energy Plan), China (New Energy Development Plan) and India (National Solar Mission), ensuring continued innovation and strong global growth rates for PV in the coming years.

Indeed the growth of PV is already delivering very tangible benefits, as witnessed by the fact that photovoltaic electricity has recently seen a considerable drop in price and a global deployed capacity increase of 7.2 GW, 15% more than in the year before. In a year of global recession, this growth has been spurred by world-wide competition and continued successes in research and development. The “Solar Europe Industry Initiative”, developed within the European Commission’s Strategic Energy Technology Plan, aims to speed up the process of getting close to grid-parity within the next decade.

We are confident that this 5th World Conference will provide the best forum to present the latest progress in PV development and manufacturing.  Exciting visions of how massive deployment of photovoltaic systems will look in 10 years from now will be outlined.

Our special wish is that this event will foster much stronger joint research on a global scale, for example in the spirit of the existing EU-China, EU-India, EU-US and EU-Japan research co-operation agreements. We urge you to use this week to discuss and explore such opportunities.

Moreover a vision beyond the 2020 PV targets is permitted on the occasion of our common Conference. The Energy (R)evolution assumptions from different sources for the period up to 2050 are available. Will we reach worldwide a global installed PV solar capacity of 3000 GW or even 4000 GW and reduce investment costs largely? During the Conference week you will have the opportunity to discuss and assess such longterm visions.

We thank you in advance for all your supporting spirits and intellectual contributions to this unique global event.

Dr. Giovanni Federigo De Santi
Director, Institute for Energy (IE)
JRC - European Commission
Conference General Chairman

Prof. Makoto Konagai
Tokyo Institute of Technology
Tokyo, Japan
Conference Vice Chairman

Dr. Robert Walters

US Naval Research Lab
Washington, DC, USA
Conference Vice Chairman