Advancing Climate-Resilient Solar PV
through Coordinated Research Infrastructures
Brussels / Grenoble, February 2026 — The EU-funded Horizon Europe project CACTUS (Enhanced Solar Photovoltaic Performance Through Improved Research Infrastructure for Adapted Climate Conditions) has successfully concluded after 24 months of coordinated collaboration between Europe and Latin America.
CACTUS addressed a critical challenge for the global energy transition: ensuring the long-term performance, reliability and sustainability of photovoltaic (PV) systems deployed under increasingly diverse and harsh climatic conditions. Rather than developing new PV technologies, the project focused on strengthening and aligning existing research infrastructures, enabling robust, comparable and policy-relevant evidence across regions and climates.
A central outcome of CACTUS is the creation of a coordinated EU–Latin America ecosystem of photovoltaic research infrastructures, integrating indoor laboratories, outdoor test sites and large-scale analytical facilities. Harmonised methodologies for PV performance assessment, degradation analysis, operation and maintenance (O&M), and sustainability evaluation were developed and applied across multiple climatic contexts.
The project delivered harmonised multi-climate datasets, a publicly accessible data platform, and several open-source tools, supporting reproducibility, transparency and long-term reuse by the wider PV community. These resources enable improved benchmarking of performance losses, degradation mechanisms and climatespecific
operational strategies.
CACTUS also demonstrated the value of advanced synchrotron X-ray and neutron-based diagnostics for photovoltaic reliability research, providing unprecedented insight into early-stage degradation processes at cell and module level. By linking laboratory-scale diagnostics with field performance data, the project strengthened the scientific basis for lifetime modelling and bankability assessments.
Operational challenges were addressed through climate-adapted O&M approaches, with particular attention to soiling and performance losses in arid and desert environments. Field campaigns showed that site-specific strategies are essential to optimise energy yield, reduce operational costs and improve long-term system resilience.
Beyond technical achievements, CACTUS delivered strong capacity building and knowledge transfer, engaging more than 150 participants through workshops, trainings and researcher exchanges, and establishing durable cooperation pathways between European and Latin American research infrastructures.
Finally, CACTUS provides policy-relevant insights on the sustainability and governance of research infrastructures, highlighting the need for long-term monitoring, harmonised data practices and sustained operational support to ensure reliable, climate-resilient PV deployment.
With its integrated approach bridging experimental science, infrastructure coordination and decision support, CACTUS offers a scalable model for international research infrastructure cooperation, supporting evidence-based photovoltaic deployment in the context of climate change.
The project’s results will be formally presented to the European Commission during the Final Review Meeting on 25 February 2026 in Brussels.