At times, a criticism levelled at the solar and battery research community is that there’s a gap between scientific investigation and the real-world needs of industry. That what’s being explored by the R&D community is, in a sense, removed from what’s happening on the ground. 

However, a look through the 2026 EU PVSEC program – a sprawling 66 pages covering five days of proceedings – seems to suggest quite the opposite.

Across the various research presentations, panel discussions and industry forums, recurring themes closely reflect some of the biggest challenges, and opportunities, facing the solar industry today:

• Integrating ever-larger volumes of PV into electricity networks, alongside the growing role of co-located battery energy storage.

• Improving PV characterization accuracy and ensuring reliability in the real world, including understanding UV-induced degradation and metastability, and building resilience against hail, high winds, soiling, and extreme heat.

• Advancing perovskite and tandem PV cells and modules through advanced metrology and testing, including evaluating emerging products in outdoor operating environments.

• Reducing silver consumption through increasing the use of aluminium and copper during metallization and cell interconnection, while pursuing sustainability through second-life applications, recycling and circularity in materials and processes. 

• Expanding solar into urban environments through balcony, vertical, flexible, lightweight and building-integrated PV, alongside the increased application of AI in electricity network management, product testing, and advanced imaging.

As the global PV industry reaches truly vast scale, the need to accelerate innovation has never been greater.

Research must, of course, continue to push into novel technologies, processes, applications and materials. But it’s encouraging to see so much of that work also focused squarely on the challenges facing the industry today.

Next week in Rotterdam, that intersection between research and real-world deployment will be on full display, and at Climate Copy we’re looking forward to getting an update on which developments will make a material impact on the industry.

In the meantime, check out our video report from last year's EU PVSEC in Bilbao!