To reduce cost/Watt of a solar cell, research projects typically aim for increasing the cell efficiency or the manufacturing efficiency. Both are covered in SOPPOM in the other projects.

This project however aims at optimization at module level and not at the cell level by optimizing the non-solar cell components of a solar module to improve the total cost efficiency of the module.

This is tackled by adding functionality to the encapsulant layer: a “smart” encapsulating layer can increase the reliability of the module and influence the light management.

Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) and Organic PhotoVoltaic (OPV) cells are studied.