# Overview and Perspective of Integrated Photovoltaics with a Focus on the European Union
## 1 Introduction  
Although the modern solar cell was invented at Bell Labs in 1954, it took 68 years to install the first 1 TWp of solar photovoltaic electricity capacity. However, the second terawatt will be installed in less than three years, when the global PV capacity will exceed 2 TWp by the end of 2024 (Figure 1).  
In 2023, global cell production was estimated to be in the range of 580 to 630 GWp [1]. As new, global installations are expected to exceed 600 GWp in 2024 [2, 3], the cell production could soon be over 700 GWp.  
Solar cell production capacities are defined as the following:  
* In the case of wafer silicon-based solar cells, only the cells.
* In the case of thin-films, the complete integrated module.
* Only those companies which actually produce the active circuit (solar cell) are counted.
* Companies which purchase these circuits and make cells are not counted.  
Despite this strong market growth in solar photovoltaic generation capacity, the addition of new manufacturing capacity along the solar value chain is outpacing it. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the six largest silicon module manufacturers alone, which accounted for almost two thirds of Tier 1 manufacturing capacity in 2023, will increase their manufacturing capacity from 552 GWp in 2023 to 621 GWp in 2024 [3]. This indicates that for the time being, the situation of manufacturing overcapacity will not ease, and the downward price pressure will continue for some time.  
At the end of 2023, the total global PV capacity surpassed 1.6 TWp and the world average of cumulative installed PV capacity reached 200 Wp per capita (Figure 2). According to progressive energy transition scenarios, solar photovoltaic power generation capacity could increase up to 80 TWp globally and up to 8.3 TWp for Europe (EU + Albania, Kosovo, Island, North Macedonia, Norway, Moldova, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, and UnitedKingdom) [4,5]. The United Nations (UN) predicts a global population of about 10 billion and 675 million in Europe by 2050. This can be translated to 8 kWp operational per capita globally and 12.3 kWp per capita in Europe by 2050.  
From a global perspective, there is no lack of available area for the installation of solar photovoltaic systems. However, in some densely populated countries and regions, the needed land can compete with other land use options and related policies. Some examples  
Figure 1: Cumulative installed photovoltaic capacity from 2010 to 2024 (data source: [3,6] and own analysis).  
Figure 2: Countries with a cumulative photovoltaic capacity of at least 500 Wp per capita in 2023 and the world average value (the order is according to 2023 capacity). For comparison, the values of 2022 are presented as well. (Data source: [3,6] and own analysis).  
of this include agriculture, hydropower, infrastructure needs, natural land protection, or recreation.  
Integrating photovoltaics with various already existing land use options as well as vehicles and ships opens access to PV potentials that are so far unused [7] and will help to overcome real as well as perceived area limitations [8; 9; 10]. The following sections will give an overview about the different technology options and where available the theoretical potential in the EU to combine photovoltaic systems with already existing land use options.