PV MODULE LIFE TIME FORECAST AND EVALUATION

    Fellows

      Amantin-Panos Mehilli (Fraunhofer ISE, Germany)

    Born in Albania, grown up in Athens, Greece, graduated with BSc in Physics in Athens and MSc in Austria, Amantin-Panos Mehilli is currently working in Freiburg, Germany. During his career he had much interaction with international people and gained much experience with different cultures and became a big fan of understanding how stuff works, both in science and in a human perspective. According to his way of thinking: ›If you don’t waste resources, you wouldn’t even need to produce more in the first place‹ he is interested in applying sustainability not only in energy, but also in simple human life terms. Amantin wants to enable people live a less stressed life, not having to worry about secondary stuff (like energy bills) and focus on primarily crucial things, such as physical and mental health.

     

     

      Ashenafi Weldemariam Gebregiorgis (Loughborough University, UK)

    Ashenafi W. Gebergioris comes from Ethiopia and received his MSc degree in Solar Energy Engineering from Dalarna University, Sweden in 2016. Currently he is a postgraduate researcher at the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST), Loughborough University in the SOLAR-TRAIN project. The research focuses on a combined accelerated stress indoor test to predict the realistic long-term outcome of a PV module in the terrestrial environment.

     

     

       Aziz Nairi (CENER National Renewable Energy Centre, Spain)

    Aziz Nairi was born in 1989 and completed his studies in France. In 2010, he obtained a technician degree in materials science at the University of Paris XIII. After that he enrolled at the University of Technology of Troyes and obtained an Engineer’s diploma in Materials Science plus a Master’s degree in Mechanical Science in 2013. During these studies he had the opportunity to do some internship at LEGO® in Denmark, at Dassault Aviationand at Saint-Gobain in France. After graduating he worked for three years at Dassault Aviation in Saint-Cloud near to Paris as a materials engineer. His work was focused on qualifying new materials for business jet’s interiors.

     

     

      Chiara Barretta (Polymer Competence Center Leoben (PCCL), Austria)

    Chiara Barretta studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Salerno (Italy). During her Master studies, she spent a semester in the Czech Republic, at the Tomas Bata University in Zlin, performing her Master thesis within the Erasmus+ program. She is currently a PhD student at Montanuniversität Leoben (Austria), and works as a researcher at Polymer Competence Center Leoben (PCCL) within the SOLAR-TRAIN project, with focus on characterization of degradation behaviour and material interactions in PV modules.

     

     

      Djamel Eddine Mansour (Fraunhofer ISE, Germany)

    Djamel Eddine Mansour grew up in Algeria where he performed his Bachelor’s degree in Material Science at University of Oran and Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering at UPMC in Paris, with extensive research experiences including his latest project at EPFL Switzerland. His interest lies in the field of Photovoltaic Modules and Systems. Since April 2017 Djamel Mansour is working on his doctoral research within the SOLAR-TRAIN project at Fraunhofer ISE. His field of research is the „Analysis of PV material and module parameters and their correlation to accelerated ageing tests and degradation modes“.

     

     

      Francesco Mariottini (Loughborough University, UK)

    After obtaining his Master in Engineering with a thesis on outdoor performance of photovoltaic modules (2011), Francesco started working on databases management and tools development. Since 2013 he has been involved in research and project management within different renewable energy and energy efficiency projects across Europe. At CREST he is focusing on the analysis of uncertainties in the evaluation of photovoltaic system performances.

     

     

      Guillermo Oviedo Hernández (BayWa r.e. Operation Services S.r.l., Italy)

    Ever since he became aware that the migration to an energy system based on renewable energy is the only way to reach a sustainable world, Guillermo Oviedo Hernandez has devoted his professional life to solar energy, particularly to Photovoltaics (PV). His professional path has taken him from Computing Engineering (Bachelor’s degree) to Photovoltaic Engineering (Master’s degree); from Mexico City to Berlin. Now, based in Rome and within the SOLAR-TRAIN project, Guillermo’s main interest is to expand his knowledge in reliability and performance engineering of utility-scale PV plants.

     

     

      Ismail Kayaa (Fraunhofer ISE, Germany)

    Ismail Kaaya is of Ugandan origin and works as a postgraduate visiting scientist of the SOLAR-TRAIN project in the field of thermal engineering at Fraunhofer ISE since April 2017. In his doctoral research, he focusses on the topic of „Service life model of PV moduls”. Before his career at Fraunhofer, he has worked on modelling spatial inhomogeneities in solar cells at EDF in France.

     

     

      Julian Ascencio Vasquez (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)

    Julian began his studies in civil electrical engineering at the Catholic University of Valparaiso in Chile. He received the MSc in electrical engineering and sustainable development from the ESIEE-Amiens and the MSc in automated systems engineering from the University of Picardy Jules Verne, France both in 2016. He is a PhD student and is employed as a junior researcher at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana. His primary research interests include photovoltaic system performance and degradation, data analysis and applied statistics.

     

     

      Luis Castillon (Polymer Competence Center Leoben (PCCL), Austria)

    Luis Castillon obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC) Tijuana in Mexico, where he worked for some years in the manufacturing industry as an engineer. Later on, he got awarded with a scholarship to join the Master’s program in Polymer Materials Science at the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg in Germany, focusing in polymer research. After having obtained his Master’s degree, he joined the Polymer Competence Center Leoben (PCCL) as a researcher for the SOLAR-TRAIN project, and he is currently registered as a doctoral student at the Montanuniversität Leoben in Austria. His current topic of research is the “Influence of encapsulant-backsheet combinations on PV module degradation modes”.

     

     

      Nikola Hrelja (EDF R&D, France)

    Before joining the SOLAR-TRAIN project at EDF R&D Nikola was working as a trainee at the Joint Research Center of the European Commission focusing on the security of supply and the power system stability with high share of intermittent energy sources under different scenarios. Currently he is focused on analyzing the degradation mechanisms and their temporal evolution to understand and predict the lifetime of a photovoltaic power plant, combining both physical models and models based on data. With the Master’s degree in Applied Statistics from University of Ljubljana he is continuing his studies as a PhD student on Ecole Polytechniques department for Applied Mathematics in Paris.

     

     

      Nikoleta Kyranaki (Loughborough University, UK)

    Nikoleta Kyranaki obtained her BSc at the Physics Department of the University of Patras in Greece. From 2015 to 2017 she completed her Master studies at the same department, focusing on Physics of Environment. In 2016, she worked as an assistant in the Laboratories of Renewable Energy Sources and of Physics at Physics Department of University of Patras. Currently, she is a PhD Researcher at the Centre of Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST), in the SOLAR-TRAIN project. Nikoleta's PhD research focuses on the influence of manufacturing processes on durability and physics of failure of PV modules.

     

     

      Sascha Lindig (EURAC Research, Italy)

    Sascha Lindig studied from 2008 until 2011 at the University of Applied Science in Jena/Germany the Bachelor course „Photovoltaic and Semiconductor Technologies”. Afterwards he started the Master course “Energy- and Environmental Technologies” at the HTWK Leipzig/Germany and graduated in 2014, writing his Master thesis at EURAC Research in Bolzano/Italy. From October 2016, Sascha was a trainee at The Institute of Photonic Science/Spain for a year. In October 2017, he joined the research group “Photovoltaic Energy Systems” of David Moser at EURAC to pursue his PhD-studies in the framework of the SOLAR-TRAIN project and focus on degradation models of PV systems.

     

     

      Stefan Mitterhofer (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)

    Stefan Mitterhofer, born in Italy, moved to Austria to study physics at the University of Vienna. Currently he is working in the Laboratory of Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics, at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubjana. Stefan's research focuses on combined degradation tests of PV mini-modules. The main factors he is looking into are high potential, elevated temperature and humidity, and UV light.