To prevent the worst outcomes of climate change and increase Europe’s energy independence, urgent and massive efforts are required to transform Europe’s energy production to renewable and secure sources. Photovoltaics (PV) has emerged as a key technology in these efforts with projected annual growth rates of 30-35% over the next years. A strong base of PV industry across the entire value chain is, therefore, of strategic importance for Europe to support this strong market growth. Since the currently dominating silicon (Si) PV technology is approaching its efficiency limit, PEPPERONI aims to 'spice up' cost-efficient industrial Si cells with a thin perovskite top cell in a monolithic tandem device. This technology promises the best ratio of performance over manufacturing costs and therefore enables to push solar module efficiencies beyond the limit of Si at lowest CO2 footprint. The key objective of PEPPERONI is to enable large-scale production of such tandem PV modules in Europe by (i) demonstrating 26%-efficient modules on industrial scale; (ii) developing fabrication processes for high-volume manufacturing; (iii) extending the operational stability of tandems to meet market expectations (>30 yr); and (iv) removing any human health or environmental risk. To reach these objectives, PEPPERONI capitalises on the world-leading tandem PV expertise of a strong and complementary consortium: 4 equipment suppliers, 2 material suppliers, 1 service provider, 9 R&D institutes and universities that hold tandem efficiency world records, and one of the world's largest PV module manufacturers: PEPPERONI coordinator Q CELLS. When joining forces, their excellence puts PEPPERONI in the unique position to set up a tandem pilot line in Europe by 2026. This will establish a robust and competitive European innovation base and PV supply chain, putting all involved partners well on track towards GW-scale production of solar modules in Europe by 2030.

PERCAL will exploit Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) as feedstock to develop intermediate chemical products at high yield and low impurity level with huge industrial interest. These will be complementary to the bioethanol (current PERSEO technology), to achieve a cascade valorisation of the MSW components, i.e.: • Lactic acid (LA) to produce: 1) Eco-friendly ethyl lactate solvents by reactive distillation from lactic acid & bio-ethanol to be used in cleaning products and inks and 2) hot-melt adhesives for cardboard and other non-food applications in combination with maleic anhydride by reactive extrusion. • Succinic acid (SA) as an intermediate building blocks to production of polyols for the polyurethane industry. • Biosurfactants by chemical and/or microbiological modification of protein and lipid fraction from remaining fraction of MSW fermentation. IIn order to minimize the MSW heterogeneous composition (due to seasonal and origin variability driven by local economic, social and climate conditions) limitations as a fermentation feedstock, four main innovations will be proposed: i) New enzymatic cocktails to maximize hydrolysis of fermentable organic matter with low inhibitors production, ii) the use of high yield, specific and robust strains for each selected acid, iii) the extraction of fermentation by-products acting as inhibitors to succinic acid production via novel membrane electrolysis employing an integrated continuous fermentation coupled with simultaneous organic acid removal in comparison with SA sequential fermentation followed by its separation using an electrodialysis-based and iv) optimize simultaneous saccharification and fermentation for lactic acid production followed by a downstream separation process based on membrane electrodialysis. To maximize the yield and purity of target organic acids, continuous and single step fermentation process will be prioritized in order to allow their integration in the PERSEO plant.