The 4th International Integrated PV (IPV) Workshop recently concluded after a two-day program filled with informative and inspiring sessions. The workshop focused on designing innovative integrated photovoltaic (PV) applications and featured a broad range of topics presented by leading experts in the various fields.
The event, jointly organized by Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), Forschungszentrum Jülich, the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Solarbe kicked off with an opening ceremony led by two esteemed keynote speakers, Christophe Ballif from EPFL and Marjan van Aubel from Studio Van Aubel. Ballif provided a comprehensive overview of PV applications in buildings, vehicles, and watches, emphasizing the benefits of integration. His talk was illustrated with stunning examples how elegantly PV can be integrated with “almost anything”, making a strong impact on the audience. Marjan van Aubel, a designer from the Netherlands, who owns her own design studio, took the stage then and presented numerous examples of how products can be designed with a focus on four key aspects: clarity, transparency, imagination, and storytelling, which is similar to the design process in classic photography.
Session 2 focused on latest advancements in the area of vehicle-integrated PV (VIPV), with Antonin Faes, Jan van Haaren, Peter Cats, and Evgenii Sovetkin as speakers. Faes presented the work done at EPFL and CSEM on integrating PV modules in small vehicles and recent advances in photovoltaics in mobility. He mentioned that solar cells have achieved 30% efficiency, and a 30-kilometer daily drive range addition can be achieved with PV, which makes it a feasible option for electric driving. Jan van Haaren and Peter Cats from Solar Trens then introduced their solar train product, which has been implemented in the Netherlands and Spain, and even incorporates cooling facilities. Sovetkin from Forschungszentrum Julich presented modeling work on the yield and irradiance on car bodies, providing valuable insights into optimizing PV power generation during road trips.
The session on colored PV featured a presentation by Kevin Verpaalen from Kameleon Solar, including many showcases of their colorful solar canopy structures. The Kameleon Solar panels feature a wide range of colour options (from homogenous to patterns) without affecting the lifespan through the creation of hot spots on solar cells. Laura Maturi (Eurac Research) demonstrated how colored PV can be integrated into various contexts and discussed the effects of different coloring techniques on efficiency. Phoebe Pearce from UNSW continued this discussion and explaining how solar cells can become colored, deriving the efficiency limits of multi-junction solar cells.
The fourth session of the event focused on product integrated PV, featuring two presenters: Carmen Ruiz Herrero from IM2NP and Alireza Hashemi from the University of British Columbia. This session unveiled a wealth of new information and depicted the various applications of PV in a household and product settings, including wearable PVs. Additionally, both presenters showcased important advancements in the characterization of these specialized PV products under artificial light.
Urban PV was the topic of Session 5, with Gabriele Lobaccaro of NTNU presenting simulation approaches towards optimizing PV in buildings and neighborhoods. Tom Minderhoud, an architect from UNStudio showed how printed PV can enhance the visual appearance of architecture and urban settings. Veronika Shabunko from NAIT, discussed the market potential for urban PV, predicting a fivefold increase in the next eight years, possibly leading to a $243 billion market worldwide by 2032.
The 2nd day of the 4th Integrated PV (IPV) workshop began with a session on building-integrated PV (BIPV) featuring a presentation by Paolo Corti of SUPSI about how different BIPV products contribute to PV power generation on different parts of buildings, including facades, skylights, and roof constructions. Tjerk Reijenga, a solar design architect, presented some of the most stunning BIPV projects, as well as new types of BIPV products which cater for different dsigns and construction needs. Chen Tianyi from SERIS highlighted the critical importance of embedding BIPV in building information management (BIM) systems, which are becoming standard industry practice in the building sector. Tianyi also showed the wide range of product assortments, including BIPV products containing LEDs (for combined BIPV and display walls) and “invisible PV” which perfectly blends into the environment such as PV roof tiles.
Floating PV (FPV) was a highly anticipated session, where Thomas Reindl from SERIS provided an overview of floating PV, including typical designs and latest market numbers. He also showed the results from global FPV potential assessments for both, in-land reservoirs and near-shore sea spaces, with sheer endless potentials. Josefine Selj from IFE presented results from their recent studies on FPV yield modeling, including temperature and wave impacts. She also highlighted the importance of understanding the environmental impact of FPV. Harald Hammer from DNV reported on benefits of Floating PV, but also typical root causes of failures or under-performance in real-world FPV installations, for example from extreme winds or loss of buoyancy. He also provided best practices in mitigating and even avoiding risk factors for enhanced bankability of FPV projects.
The session on indoor PV brought a different twist to the workshop, as device efficiencies can reach 30% and even 40% at the typical spectrum that is found indoors (which largely comes from artificial light sources). The presentation by Marina Freitag from Newcastle University, Thomas Brown from the University of Rome (Tor Vergata) and Henry Qian from SingFilm Solar nicely built upon each other, covering the science behind indoor PV (e.g., dye-sensitised solar cells, perovskites), the evolution of lab cells and actual applications over time, all the way to real-world manufacturing of perovskite devices that are used in price tags for supermarkets.
The session on Agrivoltaics or Agri PV featured three speakers, starting with Alessandra Scognamiglio from ENEA who explained how Agri PV has become a significant research domain in Italy, Europe and other parts of the world. There are benefits and trade-offs in Agrivoltaics, which need to be carefully weighed and balanced. One benefit highlighted was the water resource optimizing to counteract the impact of changing climate. Nick de Vries (Solar Farming) showed real-world examples for operating large-scale solar farms that are combined with agricultural activities such as cattle farming. In their experience, the combined use also helps to improving soil conditions over time. Alexis Pascaris from NREL emphasized the social aspects of Agri PV, highlighting the importance of stakeholder interactions, collaboration, and compatibility with traditional farming and agricultural business. Open and transparent communication is key, as are keeping benefits in the community (rather than entirely going to the external investor).
In the closing session, the huge but still largely untapped potential of integrated PV applications was highlighted by Heinz Ossenbrink (ETA Florence), also emphasizing the importance of communication and of a well-developed ecosystem among relevant stakeholders. Scott Longfellow from Mudac then took the audience on an eye-opening journey when he introduced the themes and motivations behind the Solar Biennale 2 in Lausanne that takes place 19-21 March 2025. In closing, Angele Reinders summarized the key takeaways from the IPV workshop, including, but limited to, stunningly new design options (colours, shapes, patterns) for integrating PV into buildings, urban environments and products. Advancements have been demonstrated for increasing the daily drive range in VIPV, optimizing the co-benefits of PV and agricultural activities and Floating PV was shown to be able to cover human mankind’s electricity demand multiple times over, already now, but in a future 100% RE scenario.
To learn more about the workshop: clike here
