Organic photovoltaic devices (OPVs) have major potential as a principal source of clean electricity for the future. However, the large-scale introduction of OPVs onto the market is currently limited by their stability. The StableNextSol Action, funded by the European Commission through a COST Action, aims to create a highly interdisciplinary network of academic and industry researchers to study the degradation mechanisms occurring in state-of-the-art OPVs.

The COST Action is coordinated by CSIC Research Prof. Mónica Lira-Cantu, Group Leader of the Nanostructured Materials for Photovoltaic Energy Group at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), recently accredited as a Severo Ochoa Excellence Research Center. One of the central activities of the Action is to organize the International Summit on OPV Stability (ISOS-7), which takes place in Barcelona October 6-8 (Hotel Condes de Barcelona; Passeig de Gràcia, 73).

Over 100 members of this highly interdisciplinary network join their efforts in Barcelona during ISOS-7, a Summit broadcasted live through the event’s website. The StableNextSol Action seeks to integrate and generate fundamental knowledge and expertise to foster disruptive innovations targeted to mitigate device failure. The final aim is to develop new concepts for OPVs that are more stable and reach lifetimes longer than 20 years. To achieve this goal, the StableNextSol network will use different and complementary analytical techniques and knowhow from the partners of the consortium to study and understand the degradation in state-of-the-art OPVs. During the upcoming months the consortium will create an online registry to coordinate international experiments on OPVs stability.

There is a crucial need to advance in the commercialization of OPVs and to strength the industrial European OPV sector, so that this technology can fulfil its potential and supply clean electricity on a global scale. ISOS has been running since 2008 and has rapidly become one of the most attended workshops in the field, bringing together an expert community both from industry and academia. The program includes round table discussions and the limited number of participants creates a unique atmosphere for informal scientific exchange. This year’s program covers the following topics: degradation of photo-active materials; full devices; flexible gas barriers; applications and standards; characterization techniques; related optoelectronic devices; and, for the first time, Perovskite solar cells.