Photovoltaics is booming in Europe, with around 18.7 gigawatts of new capacity installed last year. In addition to rooftop and ground-mounted solar module installations, the development of new areas of production – such as on façades, artificial bodies of water and fields – is key.

With many of the continent’s countries paving the way for ambitious photovoltaics projects, a general spirit of optimism prevails in Africa’s budding solar industry.

Read the Intersolar Europe Exhibition Newspaper Issue 02 2020

Sascha Lindig works as a researcher at EURAC in Bolzano/Italy, where he is currently completing his doctorate in cooperation with the University of Ljubljana/Slovenia as part of the H2020 Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Solar-Train project. His studies focus on statistical models for the quantification of the degradation of PV systems, degradation patterns and the economic evaluation of technical failures in PV systems. He first studied photovoltaic and semiconductor technologies at the University of Applied Sciences in Jena/Germany and then environmental and energy technologies at the HTWK Leipzig/Germany, where he received his Master of Engineering in 2014.

After his studies in energy engineering, Cyril has been working with Franz Baumgartner in PV system research at the Institute of Energy Systems and Fluid-Engineering since 2019. Main focus of his research is laboratory testing of PV system components, where he examines the efficiency of PV inverters, the performance of module-level power electronics and transients of battery systems. His activities further include the simulation of PV performance in shaded conditions and heat pump - PV control strategies.

Professor Erik Stensrud Marstein is chief scientist at the Department for Solar Power Systems at the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) in Norway, director of the Research Center for Sustainable Solar Cell Technology (FME SUSOLTECH), as well as adjoint professor in solar cell technology at the University of Oslo. He has been working at IFE in R&D in the field of PV since 2003. Most of his research has been performed in close collaboration with industry partners.