Integration of Photovoltaic Technologies in the Built Environment - Developments at the Edge of Research, Design and Engineering
Professor Angèle Reinders
- Energy Technology Group, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
- Dept. of Design, Production and Management, University of Twente, the Netherlands
Wednesday 23 November, 3pm.
Abstract
In the past decade photovoltaic (PV) technologies have become a mature, efficient and feasible sustainable energy source which plays an essential role in the energy transition. In this context, increasing numbers of PV systems, PV modules and new PV technologies will be applied in the built environment.
Namely, as over half of mankind will live in cities in the near future, urban areas are responsible for a significant part of energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions, and, therefore, also the place where innovative applications of photovoltaic technologies will have a significant impact on the creation of a sustainable environment.
Building Added Photovoltaics (BAPV) and Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) are some characteristic terms for PV in the built environment, however this presentation extends to PV products, solar powered vehicles, and PV in public space.
At present, photovoltaics in the built environment is consolidating as an interesting market segment which brings along new perspectives on, among others, the specific characteristics of irradiance in the urban outdoor space and matching of energy generation by PV technologies with the energy demand in the built environment, aiming at zero energy balance and autarchy of buildings or city neighborhoods.
However, one of the challenges which is often disregarded is optimizing the design features offered by PV technologies, such as transparency, coloring, form giving and multi-functionality, as part of the architecture language, or – evenly important - to be better able to integrate these technologies in surfaces of products, vehicles and building envelops.
Furthermore, PV technologies in the context of the built environment require to meet certain functions such as mechanical rigidity, primary weather impact protection (high irradiance, heat, cold, rain, snow, wind, hail) and sometimes daylighting. Hence, in this presentation research for the optimization of PV technologies will be placed in the context of design and engineering of inspiring PV solutions in the built environment.
In order to visually explain design aspects, this presentation will be extensively illustrated by photos of existing PV projects and renders of plenty design cases, among which recent design cases (2022) on luminescent solar concentrator photovoltaics in products and buildings.
About the speaker
Angèle Reinders is a full professor of 'Design of Sustainable Energy Systems' at the Department of Mechanical Engineering in Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. She aims at an optimal use and integration of sustainable energy technologies in products, buildings and local infrastructures to support the energy transition. In this respect solar energy has her particular interest. In her design-driven research, improved designs with sustainable energy are explored and also developed by means of simulation, prototyping and testing.
Next to being a full professor at TU/e, Angèle Reinders is an Associate Professor at University of Twente and a visiting Fellow of the School of Photovoltaics & Renewable Energy Engineering of UNSW in Sydney. In the past she conducted research at - among others - Fraunhofer Institute of Solar Energy in Freiburg, the World Bank in Washington, D.C., ENEA in Naples, Center of Urban Energy in Toronto and in the remote areas of Papua in Indonesia.
From 2010 to 2017 she was appointed as a full professor at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering in TU Delft. Projects which she has been leading range from design-driven research projects on solar powered things to exclusively research-oriented projects on luminescent solar concentrator photovoltaics, performance analysis and reliability of PV systems (in COST Action PEARL PV), and smart energy systems (in ERA-Net Smart Grid Plus Project CESEPS).
She has been involved in new program development for New European Bauhaus and, also recently, on urban heating in the ageing built environment (HERITAGE project). Moreover, she is involved in various tasks of the International Energy Agency PVPS program among which Task 17 on PV for Transport. She is known for her books “The Power of Design” (2012), “Photovoltaic Solar Energy From Fundamentals to Applications” (2017) and “Designing with Photovoltaics” (2020).
She co-founded IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, wrote about 200 publications, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and was the chair of the IEEE PVSC conference. In the 20th century Angèle studied experimental physics at Utrecht University, where she also received her doctoral degree in chemistry.
