Greece at forefront of state-of-the-art photovoltaics

The world’s first factory to produce the new third-generation photovoltaics, which can deliver electricity from almost anywhere the sun shines, will be created in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, as part of a major European project.

At the same time a second flagship project is being developed in parallel, to upgrade a pioneering laboratory into a front-line research center, turning Greece and especially Thessaloniki into a global hub in the field of organic photovoltaics and nanotechnology. The European project for the production plant is called Flex2Energy, with a budget of €21.2 million and the participation of 14 industrial and research organizations.

The new photovoltaics are flexible, translucent and printed by 3D printers. They can be mounted on windows, roofs, cars, and even bags or jackets.

According to Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Professor Emeritus Stergios Logothetidis, founder and director of the university’s LTFN Laboratory of Nanotechnology, as well as president of the company Organic Electronics Technologies (OET), the factory will produce photovoltaics for integration into buildings, greenhouses and electric cars. “The plant is planned at the end of 2025 to produce a million square meters of third-generation photovoltaics,” Logothetidis said.