ISUenergy 2015 – the 7th successful year!
Group picture in a beautiful landscape. © Gino Günzburger
Students came from 29 countries. Source: Bettina Wolter.
Local energy education & training for a global learning community – The International Summer University for Renewable Energy, the ISUenergy 2015, took place already for the seventh time from August to the beginning of September in Falera, Graubünden, with students from all around the world.
The 62 participants, most masters and PhD students, came from 29 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and America. They were chosen from more than a hundred applications for their qualifications and motivation, and invited to Falera in the Swiss mountains for the Summer University. They included students of physics, engineering sciences, chemistry, economics, architecture, environmental sciences, geography, law and mathematics. Such a diverse range of disciplines casts light on the topic of renewable energies from all sides.
In lectures, practical workshops, group projects and evening lectures, the local ISUenergy community acquired knowledge and technical knowhow on the following topics:
• Photovoltaics
• Solar architecture/BIPV
• Wind energy
• Electromobility
• Solar thermal energy
• Smart grids
• Economic and political aspects.
They learned about the fundamentals of the thematic cluster of renewable energies and acquired application-oriented knowledge on energy conversion and applications.
Over the span of two weeks, the students experimented, discussed their ideas, discarded them, tried again, and thus developed a deeper understanding.
“We didn’t just learn classically, but also discussed and investigated, and repeatedly marvelled and cheered when the results in the practical workshops and group projects met or exceeded our expectations,” a participant recounts.
Prof. Dr. Martha Ch. Lux-Steiner, Academic Director of the ISUenergy, called this university into being so that today’s young scientists can benefit from interdisciplinary cooperation and teaching from as early on as possible in light of a global energy turnaround. Since 2009, she has enticed the experts of internationally leading research institutes from across the globe to Graubünden in order to give students, lecturers and tutors this unique teaching and learning experience.
The University and the event location in Falera itself received a flood of extremely positive feedback from the students. “The chemistry was right,” the participants’ feedback says about the ISUenergy 2015 community. The working community worked, and many new contacts were made even for the future.
Further information on ISU summer school can be found here
- BESSY II: Evaporated perovskites in tandem solar cells improvedPerovskite-silicon tandem solar cells achieve significantly higher efficiencies than silicon solar cells on their own. One particularly attractive method is co-evaporation of the perovskite precursor molecules on top of the silicon subcell. Scientists at HZB have analysed film growth on the nanoscale at BESSY II and found a new way to improve the quality of the perovskite layer: adding a thin seed layer of caesium chloride between the two sub-cells promotes uniform perovskite growth and suppresses the formation of undesired lead iodide at the interface.
- New contact material boosts the efficiency of perovskite solar cellsA newly developed material for the electron contact improves the efficiency of single perovskite solar cells and perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells. The new material is based on a carborane molecule. It offers several advantages over the standard material C60, as shown by the study led by Steve Albrecht’s team. The new material has since been patented and is already commercially available.
- Precision interface chemistry pushes perovskite solar cells beyond 26% efficiencyAn international research collaboration has developed a new molecular strategy for controlling one of the most critical interfaces in perovskite solar cells. The resulting solar cells reached a power conversion efficiency of 26.19% in the n i p architecture, together with strong operational stability under prolonged illumination and elevated temperature. The results have been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.