Platform-ZERO aims to reach zero defect manufacturing for the photovoltaic industry

The latest generation of PV technologies combine high performance with a strong flexibility for integration in buildings, vehicles, agrivoltaics and internet-of-things devices. However, their high-complexity makes them prone to the appearance of critical defects with just small deviations from standard manufacturing conditions, leading to significant production waste.

Platform-ZERO, a project co-funded by the European Commission started this January, involving 12 partners from industry and research.

The project aims at improving the overall production quality of photovoltaic devices while increasing resource efficiency through zero-defect manufacturing. This will be achieved by applying key technologies for inline process monitoring and process control supported by artificial intelligence. In the long term, this should reduce manufacturing costs. The strategy will be tested in four pilot plants from PV and PV-related industrial partners in Spain, Germany, Austria and Poland. The pilots are devoted to smart coatings for PV, high-efficiency solar modules and flexible solar foils of different photovoltaic materials and processes.

Intelligent inline process monitoring and testing methods

"Especially when it comes to non-destructive and challenging inspection processes, we are broadly positioned at the AIT Center for Vision, Automation and Control; image processing is one of our research topics. Our inline computational imaging technology is used for visual inspection and is being further developed for this application, among others. It combines very fast optical 2D and 3D inspection methods with intelligent algorithms. This allows us to detect even the finest defects at high production and inspection speeds, even if the surface properties of the material are difficult. After all, our goal is to use machine learning methods to detect deviations during production before defective solar cells have to be disposed of at the end of the production line," says Govinda Lilley, who heads the project at AIT.

More on Platform-Zero

Factsheet: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101058459
Press release (German): https://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20230329_OTS0080/platform-zero-null-fehler-produktion-fuer-die-photovoltaik-industrie-bild
Press release (English): https://www.irec.cat/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/PR_Platform-ZERO_EN.pdf