Sunday, 23rd August to Saturday, 5th September: Falera - Switzerland

2009ISUenergy: International Summer University on Energy: Renewables

Organized by the Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy &

the Head of the Department Heterogeneous Material Systems Prof. Martha Lux- Steiner

THE PROGRAMME

Monday, 24 August

Prof. Louis Schlapbach Advanced materials for energy technologies

Dr. Thomas Dittrich p-n junctions

Prof. Daniel Lincot Thin Film Solar Cells (CdTe, CIS)

Dr. Sven Bonisch Solar radiation

Public Lecture - Prof. Daniel Lincot - Can we meet our energy needs with solar power?

Tuesday, 25 August

Prof. Daniel Lincot Deposition methods in thin films

Dr. Nicole Mathys Determinants of gasoline demand & Learning curve in renewable energy production

Practical Workshop “Electrical characterization of solar cells”

Public Lecture - Dr. Nicole Mathys, Consumer Behaviour and Energy Saving Products

Wednesday, 26 August

Prof. Rolf Wustenhagen Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy

Prof. Rolf Wustenhagen Influence of political framework in renewable energy financing

Practical Workshop “Solar water pumping system”

Public Lecture - Prof. Louis Schlapbach - Pierre & Marie Curie

Thursday, 27 August

Prof. Robert Pitz-Paal Modelling of solar thermal plants

Prof. Robert Pitz-Paal Middle temperature parabolic receiver systems: components, design and operation

Practical Workshop “Numerical simulation of solar thermal systems with T*SOL

Public Lecture - Prof. Robert Pitz-Paal - Supplying Europe with energy from deserts?

Friday, 28 August

Prof. Robert Pitz-Paal High temperature central receiver systems: components, design and operation

Prof. Robert Pitz-Paal Thermal energy storage for parabolic and central receiver systems

Practical Workshops “Intensity dependency of the solar cell efficiency”

Public Lecture - Dr. Henner Kerskes - Solar Architecture

Monday, 31 August

Prof. Sigurd Wagner Large Area Silicon Solar Cells

Prof. Franz Baumgartner PV Systems Components (Module, Storage, Power conditioning and regulation, BOS)

Public Lecture - Dipl-Ing. Astrid Schneider - The era of cheap oil is past - a travel to the renewable future with BIPV

Tuesday, 1 September

Dr. Henner Kerskes Low temperature solar thermal system components

Prof. Franz Baumgartner PV Applications (Stand alone, grid connected)

Public Lecture - Mr. Louis Palmer Solartaxi: Around the World with Solar Power

Wednesday, 2 September

Prof. Sigurd Wagner Techniques for Light Trapping in Solar Cells

Dr. Henner Kerskes Solar thermal system applications

Site Visit - Oerlikon Solar / Trubbach – Switzerland (info: http://www.oerlikon.com/solar/)

Public Lecture - Prof. Franz Baumgartner - Solar Electromobility

Thursday, 3 September

Dr. Henner Kerskes Solar thermal air conditioning

Dr. Thomas Dittrich Maximum efficiency in Solar Cells

Public Lecture - Prof. Sigurd Wagner - Storing solar energy

PROFESSORS & SPEAKERS

Prof. Louis Schlapbach, National Institute for Materials Science (info: http://www.empa.ch)

Prof. Daniel Lincot, ENSCP École National de Paris (info : www.enscp.fr/)

Dr. Nicole Mathys, Bundesamt für Energie BFE (info: http://www.bfe.admin.ch/)

Prof. Rolf Wustenhagen, Institute for Economy and the Environment - University of St. Gallen (info: http://www.iwoe.unisg.ch/)

Prof. Robert Pitz-Paal, DLR German Aerospace Center (info: www.dlr.de)

Dr. Henner Kerskes, University of Stuttgart (info: http://www.itw.uni-stuttgart.de/)

Prof. Sigurd Wagner, Department of Electrical Engineering - Princeton University (info: http://www.ee.princeton.edu/)

Prof. Franz Baumgartner, Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften (info: http://www.engineering.zhaw.ch/)

Dipl-Ing. Astrid Schneider, Solar Architecture Design, Research & Communication (info: http://www.astrid-schneider.de/)

Mr. Louis Palmer (more info: http://www.louis-palmer.ch/)

Dr. Thomas Dittrich & Dr. Sven Bonisch, Department Heterogeneous Material Systems - Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy (info: http://www.helmholtz-berlin.de/)

Apart from the ppt presentations that will soon be available

through ISU energy webpage here are my notes through these two weeks:

Prof. Daniel Lincot referred to energy payback time or energy reimbursement: the time required for any energy producing system or device to produce as much energy as was required in its manufacture. Today we spent water to have energy when renewable energies don’t! But there is also a matter of toxicity depending on the chemical elements used in solar cells but its always a question whether its better to have a safe process (e.g. use of high toxicity elements in the production with the ability to recycle at end-use than depending on nuclear power which is ‘a completely not recycling process’.

Mr. Louis Palmer went around the world with his solartaxi (info: http://www.solartaxi.com/) and through this experience he is in favour of the renewable energy practises implemented in Asia (e.g Mazdar city* - cooled house with the use of car tires in Kuala Lumpur / Malaysia) – against the energy policy in Australia and initiator of ZERO RACE (info: http://www.zero-race.com/). He calculated that a corn field of about 100 m x 100 m (one hectare) can give biofuel for 36.000km distance but what if this corn field in the U.S.A. was covered by solar panels? Approximately the energy produced could charge a car for about 2.500.000 km.

Prof. Sigurd Wagner mentioned that ‘by the trapped light we live’ and that most important for ozone is the water vapor and then the carbon dioxide but there is an effect in different wavelength!

Dr. Nicole Mathys, is fun of NUDGES & the relative literature (info: http://www.nudges.org/).

Prof. Robert Pitz-Paal, head of the solar research department at the German Aerospace Agency (DLR) believes that DESERTEC (info: www.desertec.org) is a political level decision. As it was a political decision between France, Egypt and Nigeria to call all nations into a ‘UNION FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN’ he mentioned. He also referred to the following projects:

- MED-CSP Concentrating Solar Power for the Mediterranean Region- http://www.dlr.de/tt/med-csp

- AQUA-CSP Concentrating Solar Power for Seawater Desalination - http://www.dlr.de/tt/aqua-csp

- TRANS-CSP Trans-Mediterranean interconnection for Concentrating Solar Power - http://www.dlr.de/tt/trans-csp

Dr. Henner Kerskes spoke about a European funded research - new4old – New technology for old buildings (info: http://www.new4old.eu/) and explained in detail the T*SOL, a simulation programme for the design and optimisation of solar thermal systems (info: http://www.valentin.de/index_en_page=tsol_pro). Orientation (Socrates first mentioned that...), construction and material used are the three most important elements for a building as far as solar utilization is concerned. Interesting project, funded by the 6^th Framework Programme is NEGST - New Generation of Solar Thermal Systems (info: http://www.swt-technologie.de/html/negst.html)

Prof. Louis Schlapbach, strongly in favour of sustainability presented the advertisement of F-CELL car: ‘The primal element of all things is water – all things come from water and all things return to water’ Thales of Miletus (circa 625 – 547 BC.). The most important thing that we should never forget is that there is NO NEUTRONS IN HYDROGEN!

Prof. Rolf Wustenhagen is in favour of ‘the energy you don’t use is the most environmentally friendly one’. For Greece as soon as administrative process are initiated and clearer, it is expected to attract in future more the interest of international companies.

Prof. Franz Baumgartner wondered why we speak about climate change when we don’t change our everyday life; He referred to Yukinori Kuwano, who in 1989 spoke about a Global Energy Network equipped with solar cells and international superconductor grids (The GENESIS Project).

OUTLINE: Greece is a country with abundant sun but no high costs for electricity like other – mostly central – EU member countries…maybe that’s the reason why we don’t care about grid parity, e.g. the point at which photovoltaic electricity is equal to or cheaper than grid power and is achieved first in areas with abundant sun and high costs for electricity.

Other interesting links:

- Fassade, Swiss magazine for window & façade technology - http://www.fassade.ch

- European Renewable Energy Council - http://www.erec.org/

- Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS): http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/

- KEY WORLD ENERGY STATISTICS 2008 from the International Energy Agency (IEA): http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2008/key_stats_2008.pdf)

- The Renewable Energy House / Brussels - ntegration of innovative renewable energy technologies in an old building: http://www.erec.org/reh

* A planned city in Abu Dhabi - United Arab Emirates, being built by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company with the majority of seed capital provided by the government of Abu Dhabi. Designed by the British architectural firm Foster + Partners, the city will rely entirely on solar energy and other renewable energy sources, with a sustainable, zero-carbon, zero-waste ecology. It will host the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA - http://www.irena.org/).