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
- CIGS-perovskite tandem cell achieves record efficiency of 25.5 %A Berlin-based team from HZB and Center for the Science of Materials Berlin (CSMB) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has set a new record for a tandem solar cell. Using a combination of a CIGS semiconductor layer and perovskite, along with several optimised intermediate layers, they were able to convert 25.5% of sunlight into electrical energy. The previous record for this combination of materials and this size of cell stood at 24.6%. The new record has been certified and is visible in the prestigious Solar Cell Efficiency Tables (the "Green Tables"), which serve as the definitive ledger for the global photovoltaic community.
- Disorder creates new properties in compound semiconductorsAn international research team has demonstrated that the intrinsic disorder of the compound semiconductor CuInSnS₄ can be exploited to influence its optical properties. While the atomic vibrations also sense the local disorder, their response is averaged over many different local environments and therefore appear isotropic, as expected for a cubic crystal. In contrast, the optical excitations, known as excitons, are much more sensitive to the local arrangement of atoms. Surprisingly, they show a direction-dependent optical response even though the average crystal structure is cubic. These findings shed new light on the relationship between disorder and material properties, opening up new options for targeted 'disorder engineering' in optoelectronic and photocatalytic devices.
- Perovskite solar cells: Predictions of long-term stabilityReliable statements about the long-term stability of perovskite solar cells are still difficult to make. However, a new study by Dr Carolin Ulbrich’s team, published in the renowned journal Joule, highlights which methods are useful for this purpose and identifies areas where further research is needed.