Photovoltaics - IEEE Stamm @EPFL - May 2021

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The IEEE EPFL Student Branch in collaboration with the IEEE Life Member Activity Group, kindly invites you to participate to the online May Stamm dedicated to Photovoltaics.

The first speaker, Michel Villoz, started building photovoltaic panels in Switzerland in 1980. After introducing the basics of the technology, he presented how the PVsyst simulator of photovoltaic installations can cover many situations. He described the generally preferred implementations. He concluded that aging of the panels is negligible as compared with year to year variations, but cleaning of the panels has a big impact. Professor Christophe Ballif first described the challenge to reach the 2 degrees warming limit by 2050.

Spending about 18 billion € per year (only) is required to replace fossil fuels in the production of electricity, including the growth of electric consumption. The efficiency of solar panels continues to progress incrementally. New technologies including perovskites were presented. The CO2 required as grey energy to produce panels can be reduced to ½ year of operation with a new factory under construction in Germany. In Switzerland, the labor cost of the installation dominates.

Therefore, architectural integration in the form of tiles is pursued to increase the acceptance of solar roofs. Professor Arvind Shah confirmed that PV production must be increased 30 times to reach the 2050 goal. This means adding 12% more PV production per year while the growth of 30% per year was observed in the past 20 years.

The book Solar Cells and Modules (Springer) presents PV technology trends. Switzerland has the expertise for PV plants floating on water and amorphous cells are used in Swiss Made solar watches.

The IEEE EPFL Student Branch in collaboration with the IEEE Life Member Activity Group, kindly invites you to participate to the online May Stamm dedicated to Photovoltaics.

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