Sicily's Photovoltaics Research Pole

The research groups of Mario Pagliaro at Italy's CNR and Leonardo Palmisano at Palermo's University teamed up in 2008 (watch the video) to establish Sicily's PV Research Pole, a research and educational center in solar energy.

Its mission is is simple: to ease adoption of solar energy by companies and families in Italy to benefit from the immense economic and environmental opportunities offered by solar energy.

To achieve this goal, Pole's researchers conduct educational and research activities that have resulted in a numer of achievements.

Solar energy will play a key role in global renaissance: solving the climate and energy crises, healing the global economy shaken by the global financial crisis, and spreading hope worldwide: in both developed and developing countries.

Research: New PV and Solar Hydrogen

Sicily's researchers work on advancig the new photovoltaic technology known as DSC, based on chemical dyes and semiconductor titania as well as on solar generation of hydrogen from water.

Some of the achievements include:

“Solar Hydrogen: Fuel of the Near Future”. (2010) Energy & Environmental Science publishes our paper written with Athanasios Konstandopoulos #3 amongst the top ten accessed articles.
“Nanochemistry Aspects of Titania in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells”. Cover of Energy & Environmental Science
"Flexible Solar Cells”. #3 most downloaded article in 2009 from ChemSusChem.

Cover of Energy & Environmental Science issue 8/2009, featuring Mario Pagliaro's and coworkers' work

Outreach Programs

The Pole's researchers co-authored the best-selling Flexible Solar Cells and contribute frequently to spread the word about solar energy.

We showcase solar applications from the household scale through to great public architecture, and help to debunk many myths about solar energy – such as the idea that it will always need fossil-fuel stations during night or on standby.

We work locally and regionally to educate schoolchildren about the benefits of solar power.

Sicily: A Solar Future

Solar energy (including PV, solar thermal and CSP technologies) is on a strong growth trajectory everywhere in the world, in both developed and developing countries. Solar electricity costs continue to fall rapidly. The cost of PV electricity, already lower than 20 US cents per kWh, will drop to less than 15 US cents per kWh in much of the OECD by 2012 - and in some cases to less than 10 US cents per kWh.

Blessed with plentiful sunshine, Sicily is one of the first Europe's region that has already reached the "grid-parity", namely the point at which the price of photovoltaic electricity equals that of power purchased from the grid. The island is experiencing a real boom in both major domains of the solar energy industry -- PV and solar thermal.

Earlier this year, a new company started production in Sicily of thin-film modules using state-of-the-art technology. With the ongoing decline of the modules price and its large > (5 m) population, Sicily is certainly one of the Europe's regions that will experience double-digit growth in coming years.

We look forward to a world where solar energy is contributing to everything from air quality through to a smart grid where electric cars store excess solar energy in their batteries to get around the intermittence of sunlight.