First GW of installed PV capacity and thousands of jobs created in PV sector today in Netherlands

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS: The 29th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC 2014) started on Monday 22 September, with more than 1,500 contributions from 71 countries in all areas of PV technologies, applications, markets and policies.

The conference will be combined with a top PV industry Exhibition to showcase new products and technical innovations from all over the world and from all areas of PV. This 29th conference will address not only the technical progress in research and deployment, but will also highlight the impact that the growth of PV will have on our overall energy system.

The Netherland’s Minister of Economic Affairs Henk Kamp, opened the conference. Just this month, the Netherlands celebrated its first GW of installed PV capacity.

Teun P. Bokhoven, Conference General chairman and president of the Dutch Renewable Energy Federation says: “With the geo-political tension in the world today and Europe’s urgent need to become more energy independent, PV can strongly contribute toward a more sustainable energy future in Europe”.

“This period may be a turning point for Europe,” says Bokhoven. “Europe’s PV manufacturing capacity decreased strongly over the past years. Despite this with a strong European market and export potential, new opportunities arise for the upstream side of PV manufacturing, using the latest state of the art of Europe’s technology in producing PV at higher efficiencies and lower cost. The distribution and storage of solar energy will become as important as producing it. New challenges arise. Focus has been in the past on the production of solar energy. Today we need to look far more downstream and address the challenges of energy distribution and storage as well."

Arnulf Jaeger-Waldau, Conference Technical Programme chairman, says, “The conference in Amsterdam is an excellent opportunity to raise awareness that the declining trend of the PV industry both in manufacturing and implementation can be revised with the right political framework to exploit Europe’s innovation potential and revitalize manufacturers and installers”.

Monday’s scientific opening provided presentations on recent research advancements and new technologies.