Publications related to Financial incentives for photovoltaics

Distributional justice, effectiveness, and costs of current and alternative solar PV incentive schemes in Switzerland

Like many other countries, Switzerland offers various incentives to promote residential solar PV, but not all households have equal access to them. Using a microsimulation approach based on merged data from the Swiss Household Budget Survey and Household E ...

2024

Advanced Manufacturing and Characterization of Building-Integrated Photovoltaic Modules

Alejandro Borja Block

Photovoltaic (PV) technology is necessary for global decarbonization. However, one of the challenges of the technology is that its land use may conflict with other space demands. Building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) is a solution to efficiently use the ...

EPFL2024

Encapsulation strategies for mechanical impact and damp heat reliability improvement of lightweight photovoltaic modules towards vehicle-integrated applications

Fabiana Lisco

Lightweight modules are essential for next-generation vehicle-integrated photovoltaic (VIPV) applications, such as solar-powered cars, allowing integration of solar cells beyond the roof, and on the hood, boot and body panels, and thereby extending the dri ...

Elsevier2024

Balancing DSO interests and PV system economics with alternative tariffs

Christophe Ballif, Nicolas Würsch, Alejandro Pena Bello, Robin Junod

Distributed rooftop photovoltaics (PV) is one of the pillars of the energy transition yet their widespread integration strains grids, leading to over-voltage, reverse power flow, and infrastructure strain. Furthermore, increased PV self-consumption reduces ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2023

Reinforcement Learning for Joint Design and Control of Battery-PV Systems

Christophe Ballif, Nicolas Würsch, Laure-Emmanuelle Perret Aebi, Marine Dominique Cauz

The decentralisation and unpredictability of new renewable energy sources require rethinking our energy system. Data-driven approaches, such as reinforcement learning (RL), have emerged as new control strategies for operating these systems, but they have n ...

2023

What is the net PV energy production in Switzerland and how can we maximize it?

Gloria Serra Coch, Pablo Francisco Martinez Alcaraz

Maximizing solar energy production in Switzerland is key to meet energy transition goals. Understanding in detail the current situation, and the potential for expansion is important to develop effective strategies. With this study, we want to contribute to ...

2023

On the role of districts as renewable energy hubs

Luise Middelhauve

Although inevitable, the process of transforming urban areas into sustainable living environments presents many challenges. The decentralization of the energy system, the interconnection of multiple energy carriers, and the need to account for conflicting ...

EPFL2022

Integrated solar-driven high-temperature electrolysis operating with concentrated irradiation

Jan Van Herle, Sophia Haussener, Stefan Diethelm, Clemens Gregor Suter, Meng Lin

High-temperature electrolysis for reducing H2O (and CO2) to H2 (and CO) converts concentrated solar energy into fuels and chemical feedstock. We invented an integrated reactor concept comprising a solar cavity receiver for reactant heating, a solid oxide e ...

2022

Spatio-Temporal Estimation of Renewable Energy Potential in Built Environments using Big Data

Alina Ursula Rosa Walch

To achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change, governments around the world must shift to renewable energy (RE) to drastically reduce their CO2 emissions within the next 10-30 years. The development of effective strategies for RE integratio ...

EPFL2022

Reliable Dispatch of Active Distribution Networks via a Two-layer Grid-Aware Model Predictive Control: Theory and Experimental Validation

Mario Paolone, Rahul Kumar Gupta, Antonio Zecchino, Ji Hyun Yi

Dispatching active distribution networks (ADNs) is an energy-intensive application that, if implemented via battery-energy storage systems (BESSs), can require a large capacity of these assets in order to fully balance the uncertainties caused by the stoch ...

2022

Quantification of existing rooftop PV hourly generation capacity and validation against measurement data

Roberto Castello, Jean-Louis Scartezzini, Alina Ursula Rosa Walch

The spatio-temporal patterns of the existing rooftop photovoltaic (PV) production can provide valuable insights for the design of effective strategies for PV integration at large scale. In this work, we quantify the hourly production of existing rooftop PV ...

IOP PUBLISHING LTD2021

Parallel PV Configuration with Magnetic-Free Switched Capacitor Module-Level Converters for Partial Shading Conditions

Elison de Nazareth Matioli, Remco Franciscus Peter van Erp, Georgios Kampitsis

In this paper, a module-level photovoltaic (PV) architecture in parallel configuration is introduced for maximum power extraction, under partial shading (PS) conditions. For the first time, a non-regulated switched capacitor (SC) nX converter is a used at ...

2021

Designing and assessing solar energy neighborhoods from visual impact

Jérôme Henri Kämpf, Pietro Florio, Amarasinghage Tharindu Dasun Perera, Giuseppe Peronato

The optimal diffusion of Building Integrated PhotoVoltaics (BIPV) in cities requires diligent planning to arrange temporal and spatial distribution of energy, while preserving the aesthetics of city landscapes. Benefitting from an increasing quality of 3D ...

2021

Optimal path to a high share of distributed PV in low-voltage distribution grids

Lionel Benjamin Bloch

To limit global warming, the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables is one of the main challenges of this century. This transition will help decrease our CO2 emissions, create jobs, contribute to a broader revenues distribution, improve energy s ...

EPFL2020

Mitigating the impact of distributed PV in a low-voltage grid using electricity tariffs

Christophe Ballif, Nicolas Würsch, Lionel Benjamin Bloch, Jordan Holweger

A high share of distributed photovoltaic (PV) generation in low-voltage networks may lead to over-voltage, and line/transformer overloading. To mitigate these issues, we investigate how advanced electricity tariffs could ensure safe grid operation while en ...

2020

Big data mining for the estimation of hourly rooftop photovoltaic potential and its uncertainty

Roberto Castello, Jean-Louis Scartezzini, Nahid Mohajeri Pour Rayeni, Alina Ursula Rosa Walch

The large-scale deployment of photovoltaics (PV) on building rooftops can play a significant role in the transition to a low-carbon energy system. To date, the lack of high-resolution building and environmental data and the large uncertainties related to e ...

2020

Reliability and Performance of Model Predictive Control for Demand Response with Residential Heat Pumps

Frédéric Louis-Pierre Raphaël Marie Amblard

Distributed energy resources like solar panels and wind turbines are increasingly replacing fossil fuel energy sources. Due to their natural fluctuations they cause imbalance in the power grid when their production does not overlap with demand. Thus, there ...

EPFL2021

Urban planning support based on the photovoltaic potential of buildings: a multi-scenario ranking system

Giuseppe Peronato

An increased use of renewable energy and of energy efficiency measures in buildings is needed to face the urgency of climate change. Buildings are in fact among the highest worldwide consumers of primary energy, mostly of fossil fuel origin, while still ma ...

EPFL2019

The bright side of PV production in snow-covered mountains

Michael Lehning, Jérôme François Sylvain Dujardin, Annelen Kahl

Our work explores the prospect of bringing the temporal production profile of solar photovoltaics (PV) into better correlation with typical electricity consumption patterns in the midlatitudes. To do so, we quantify the potential of three choices for PV in ...

National Academy of Sciences2019

Glass-free lightweight PV building elements: solutions to minimize weight and maximize durability

Ana Cristina Oliveira Martins

In densely populated countries, little free land is available for the deployment of photovoltaics (PV) in field installations. In addition, 40% of the world's demand for electricity is related to buildings. These facts provide a strong argument for the acc ...

EPFL2019