© HZB/Baip
Inolope Expo 2025
© HZB/Baip
© HZB/Baip
© HZB/Baip
We look back on 3 exciting days at the Inolope Expo 2025.
From February 12 to 14, 2025, the first Inolope Expo took place in Dortmund, a trade fair covering all aspects of innovative building envelopes. In addition to trade associations from the façade technology and green building sectors, various suppliers offered technical solutions for the façade design of today and tomorrow. An interesting program of specialist lectures, product presentations and panel discussions was offered on all three days at the dedicated trade fair forum.
The trade fair took place parallel to the established elektrotechnik, the trade fair for building, energy and industrial technology. The combination of the two trade fairs meant that there were many specialists who were particularly interested in the field of photovoltaics, as well as visitors who were explicitly interested in the building envelope, both in terms of design and function.
We from BAIP were represented with our own stand, which gave visitors a clear and practical insight into the possibilities of building-integrated photovoltaics. In particular, our 1:1 scale demonstrators of a solar façade and a roof section with solar roof tiles drew the attention of many interested visitors to us and our topics.
In over 360 stimulating conversations with the knowledgeable visitors, we were able to discuss the opportunities and challenges of building-integrated photovoltaics in depth, refute some prejudices and, above all, provide advice and information.
In close cooperation with the organizers of the trade fair and under the excellent moderation of Fabian Flade from the BIPV Alliance, we were able to provide various insights into topics such as building law and simulation of BIPV projects at the Inolope expert forum and present current results and experiences from our BIPV living laboratory / HZB. Together with Gunter Mann from the Bundesverband GebäudeGrün and Markus Schultz from the Verband für Fassadentechnik, we discussed “New Approaches” for the building envelope on a panel.
All in all, the first Inolope Expo was a great success for us at the BAIP. We were able to reach many interested people and also take away a few suggestions. We will certainly be continuing some of the discussions in the coming weeks.
- 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.
- Solar experts meet in BerlinThe sixth tandemPV Workshop will take place in Berlin, Germany from June 17-19, 2026, hosted by Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin.