HORIZON EUROPE INNOVATION ACTION
SUNRISE Project
Sustainable Composites Manufacturing Framework for the Mass Customization of Integrated Solar Photovoltaic Products
SUNRISE will deliver the most appropriate manufacturing solutions enabling a new generation of lightweight, recyclable, highly customized integrated photovoltaics (IPV) products that combine mechanical robustness, high-efficiency, and aesthetic versatility with circular-by-design principles.
The EU has set ambitious targets to expand its solar PV manufacturing capacity as part of the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA) and the Green Deal Industrial Plan. SUNRISE builds on the premise that mass customization and wide integration of PV products into diverse surfaces and structures will only be feasible by further advancing fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite-based materials, manufacturing processes, and design approaches that offer both structural robustness and functional versatility.
OUR TECHNOLOGY
3 integrated technology pillars
SUNRISE rests on three integrated pillars:
- Demonstrating manufacturability and industrial scalability of FRP-PV products through advanced composite processing, flexible automation, and process monitoring;
- Ensuring materials compatibility and product lifetime by systematically investigating cell shaping and wiring strategies, encapsulant materials, and multifunctional surfaces;
- Embedding digital tools, sustainability strategies, and standardisation needs to guarantee technological feasibility, competitiveness, and alignment with EU policy goals.
Manufacturability & scalability
Advanced composite processing, flexible automation, process monitoring
Materials compatibility
Cell shaping, wiring strategies, encapsulants, multifunctional surfaces
Feasibility, competitiveness and alignment with EU policies
Embedded digital tools, sustainability strategies and standardisation.
The project builds on Europe’s leadership in FRP composites engineering to significantly enhance its industrial competitiveness in the manufacturing of IPV products, components and equipment, creating new business opportunities for all those involved in both solar photovoltaics (PV) and FRP composites value chains, while directly contributing to the NZIA objectives for solar manufacturing capacity, circularity and resilience, to EU’s strategic autonomy in the clean energy transition, and to its climate and resilience targets.
OBJECTIVES
Six specific objectives
USE CASES
Three real-world IPV demonstrations
- To develop high-throughput manufacturing route for 3D PV modules.
- To incorporate durable and cost-efficient materials.
- To ensure cells integrity, efficiency and aesthetical grade.
To develop new manufacturing route of glass-free modules enabling the reduction of:
• Weight • Fragility
• Sound reflection • Installation constraints
- To validate a robust FRP-PV moulding process for the integration of PV in the deck
- Complete flush integration (zero gap)
- Similar surface finish (antiskid)
WORK PLAN
9 Work Packages
WP1 - Product and Process Requirements
To establish a solid knowledge base that will guide all subsequent technological developments within SUNRISE. This involves:
- Building a comprehensive understanding of IPV market needs, panel/product and component requirements, manufacturing and production targets, and the availability of suitable materials. The outcome will be a set of technical, economic and sustainability requirements that the FRP-PV products/ processes must meet.
- Selecting the most promising materials to be considered in the process development stage.
The WP1 results will provide a robust background for the process innovations and provide product and process-related inventories to be further detailed in WP2 and used as reference in the technical and sustainability assessments.
WP2 - Product and Process Design Tools
To establish the digital backbone of SUNRISE that will enable to obtain highly customized FRP-PV designs that are not only manufacturable and reliable but also traceable and market-compliant. This will be achieved by:
- Developing a digital infrastructure for interoperable data management across partners, aligned with FAIR principles and EU data spaces initiatives. This will be the basis to design and implement a FRP-PV Digital Product Passport (DPP) ensuring compliance with traceability and circularity requirements.
- Creating an AI-powered decision-support system (DSS) capable of integrating simulation, process, and lifecycle data to provide actionable insights and optimize designs and manufacturing processes across performance, cost, environmental impact, and other sustainability dimensions.
WP3 - FRP-PV Lamination
WP3 develops and validates a 3D lamination process that bonds PV cells, their interconnections, protective encapsulants and outer FRP composite layers in a single step. The result is a manufacturing strategy and toolkit for producing flat and double-curved FRP-PV modules with high reliability and durability.
The work combines digital twins and simulation to guide process optimization, lamination tuning for standard and emerging cell technologies with sustainable encapsulants, in-situ monitoring of temperature, pressure and crosslinking for repeatable quality, and characterization against IEC standards and application-specific tests.
WP3 builds on the requirements and materials selected in WP1, integrates the most promising cell and wiring solutions from WP5, and explores synergies with the moulding strategies in WP4. Its outputs feed industrial demonstration in WP6 and sustainability analysis in WP7.
WP4 - FRP-PV Moulding
To develop an LCM-based manufacturing strategy that enables the integration of PV laminates into highly customized,
complex-shape FRP-PV structures. This will involve:
- To develop LCM process simulation methodologies to guide process optimization and tooling design.
- To develop smart moulds and a digital quality control system based on embedded sensors for in-line process monitoring and adaptive control of the key process parameters.
- To define and validate reliable process strategies to ensure PV cell integrity during resin infusion, preserving optical transmission and mechanical strength, and robust bonding across all multi-material interfaces.
WP5 - Component-level Process Innovations
To enable the process technologies that, at the level of the cells and interconnections, as well as at the part surface, will determine the customization potential, robustness, and overall performance of FRP-PV products, specifically:
- To develop and combine laser patterning and replication processesto obtain multifunctional PV films.
- To advance laser-based cutting processes for flexible and precise cell shaping and contouring, enabling customized layouts and high conformability without compromising or even improving cell’s electrical and/or mechanical integrity.
- To deliver sustainable and resilient wiring solutions.
- To assess the disassembly potential of the FRP-PV stack configurations obtained from WP3/WP4.
- To develop and prototype a semi-automated wiring equipment, based on STIC’s TTSTM technology, able to work with different wire diameters / interspacing and alternative tape stiffness, required for high customization of cell layouts and stress accommodation during FRP-PV shaping.
WP6 - Demonstration of Manufacturing Processes and Prototypes
To demonstrate the scalability, robustness, and industrial relevance of the manufacturing strategies and tools developed within WP2-5 by producing functional FRP-PV prototypes in representative operational environments,and cross-validate their overall performance. This includes:
- Using the digital design and decision-support tools developed in WP2 to integrate the materials, processes, and component-level innovations into FRP-PV demonstrator designs.
- To demonstrate the manufacturing of flat, double-curved and complex-shaped FRP-PV and structures, representative of the real use-cases proposed, applying harmonized validation protocols, in line and extending quality control procedures used by the partners acting as end-users.
- Deploying and testing the flexible tape wiring prototype system under near-industrial conditions.
WP7 - Sustainability Assessment and TRL Upscale Pathways
To assess the overall sustainability of the SUNRISE innovations, and to define clear exploitation pathways and upscaling strategies ensuring competitiveness and alignment with EU priorities. This includes:
- To assess the life-cycle costs and business cases of the FRP-PV results with higher commercial potential.
- To evaluate environmental and social impacts of the SUNRISE innovations.
- To define and validate circularity and traceability strategies of the FRP-PV products.
- To define TRL upscaling pathways and key enabling actions to accelerate industrial adoption of the FRPPV manufacturing strategies and products.
WP8 - Results Leveraging
- To maximize the impact of the SUNRISE project, ensuring the effective communication and dissemination of its results among the target-groups, to foster the further development of FRP-PV products and their enabling manufacturing solutions.
- To manage IP, define individual exploitation plans for partners within an overall exploitation vision.
- To streamline skills building regarding the further development and implementation of SUNRISE results.
WP9 - Project Coordination and Management
- To provide financial and contractual management of the consortium.
- To ensure seamless coordination among the consortium partners and with the EC/Agency.
- To ensure the adequate implementation of the work-plan, assessing time, economic and technical resources allocated to each WP, and implementing appropriate risk assessment approaches to meet the project objectives.
Get in Touch