The European Patent Office says that in the last 15 years, China has overtaken other countries in photovoltaic patent applications, while European startups and universities are maintaining a lead in Agrivoltaics and Niche Solar applications.
The Observatory of the European Patent Office about patents and technology says that innovation in PV has grown more than seventeen over the past three decades.
The technological insight of the office report Analyzes trends in 30 technologies for five decades. It includes 340,000 inventions, including 70,000 international patent families (IPFs) about photovoltaic materials, photovoltaic devices, the management of these devices and application areas.
The report says that most of the best applicants with regard to IPF’s companies were located in Japan, followed by the United States, Korea, Germany and France. Leading Chinese innovators are not in the list because of their primary focus on domestic patent applications.
The European Patent Office noted that although device technologies played a key role from 1990 to 2023, good for a maximum of 78% of all inventions, the role of other sub -areas in more recent years has grown steadily.
From 2020 to 2023, about half (48%) of all photovoltaic inventions were related to device technologies, followed by applications (25%), photovoltaic materials (17%) and device management (10%).
Patient activities have increasingly shifted to China in the last 15 years. Although IPFs have fallen since 2012, the European Patent Office said that patent applications in China have risen almost six times since 2010, with the country accounting for 80% of all new photovoltaic inventions worldwide by 2022.
Elsewhere, Europe has maintained a lead in implementation -related technologies, including agrivoltaïschens and installations on roofs, carports and buildings.
The report calls the startup activity so highest in Germany, France, Switzerland and Sweden. It adds that European universities continue to demonstrate High levels of inventive activity, especially in photovoltaic devices and materials, where the UK leads in academic patents, followed by France, Switzerland and Germany.
In the conclusion of the report, the European Patent Office said that the outlooks for inventions and innovation in photovoltaïschens remain ‘promising’.
“Persistent progress in photovoltaic materials and devices and economies of scale will ensure that photovoltaïschens continue to play a key role in the worldwide transition to sustainable energy,” said the European Patent Office. “In the coming years we can expect new materials to become more mature and competitive, production processes will become more efficient and environmentally friendly and photovoltaisies will become even smarter.”
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