8 November 2024 – LEM + Geography Outing

Alexander Skinner – The Physics and Geography departments met up in the north of Luxembourg to conquer sonorous trail. It was a great time where we could reconnect with each other and learn about what everyone has been up to between clanging, banging, chiming and climbing. Afterwards we went for a lovely meal at Brasserie Beim Koeppe Jemp where the conversations and frivolity continued.

Clara Schreck – I took the train and went to Bern, Switzerland with Phillip Dale to attend the 19th Advanced Building Skins Conference. During those two days, many architects and academic researchers discussed the future of building facades, including photovoltaics. I had the opportunity to present my own project and discuss it around one of the posters I brought. We also took the time to network with other companies developing colored solar panels.

22 October 2024 – SRAE Benelux conference

Alexander Skinner – The Society and Risk Analysis Europe conference was a great opportunity to showcase our 3d model workshop paper. Where I presented the rationale and findings behind using Solartopia. There seemed to be a great deal of interest and people were excited to learn more. The paper and presentation is in the outputs section of the website.

Clara Schreck – I had the amazing opportunity to spend one week at a summer school in Bandol, south of France, in the company of other PhD students and researchers specialized in the field of liquid crystals.

In between lectures, experiments and diving in the sea, I had the opportunity to discuss about the SolarZukunft project and share some of the challenges I am facing. I learnt so much that I felt like my head would explode at the end of the week! I also received very good advice and am ready to test it now that I am back in the lab!

Clara Schreck – Prof. Dale’s team participated in an outreach event with the Scienteens, a program that allows high school students to visit research labs.
The students first got a presentation about our different research topics, then got a tour of our labs. They saw how solar cells layers are deposited and how a cell’s efficiency gets measured.
They were particularly enthusiastic about the colors displayed by Liquid crystals and overall were happy with their visit.
We are looking forward to the next visit of the Scienteens students!

7 – 11 September 2024 – Eurocarto Conference Vienna

Alexander Skinner – The geography team had the oppotunity to present not one, but two posters at the Eurocarto conference in Vienna. The first was a poster concerning the beginnings of our augmented reality app where people could even test out the armchair version. The second poster was a look into how solar PV adoption has evolved in Luxembourg; investigating diffusion patterns over time. You can see the posters up close on our ‘outputs’ page.

30 July 2024 – SciLux Podcast

Phillip Dale – Just before the summer break, I sat down with Hanna Siemaszko from the SciLux podcast to discuss the future of photovoltaic power. The conversation touched upon the surprising and important role that architects have in the future for making sure that our buildings are net zero emission whilst still looking great.

The full podcast can be found here: https://shorturl.at/cJwAI. Or simply search your favorite podcast app for SciLux podcast, season 4, episode 23 – Solar panels.

Alex Skinner – I had the brilliant opportunity to present my findings concerning how solar PV adoption correlates with urban form. The aim was to better understand the spatial distribution of solar PV in Luxembourg and how it relates to urban form. There was a great deal of interest and many great questions and comments from the audience.

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/gisruk_ask_rspv_solarpaneldistribution-pptx/273397959

Clara Schreck – Me and Prof. Dale went to visit the ISC Konstanz in South Germany, right next to the Swiss border. This company is specialised in the development of silicon photovoltaics and energy systems.

We visited their research center and saw all their different processes to build and tests their solar panels. We were especially interested in their encapsulation process, where the modules get protected by a polymer sheet. This extra layer shields the modules from degradation due to particles or humidity.

We brought our own color samples and tried the encapsulation on it for the first time. The results were quite promising, even though some optimizations need to be made. We are looking forward to continuing this partnership with the ISC and are very happy with this step forward in the project.

Alexander Skinner – Today was the first stakeholder workshop where participants were asked to collectively design scenarios that we can integrate into both the Digital Model and AR app.

In our interactive workshop we addressed spatial planning questions of where would you put Solar PV in urban and rural places and why. Using scaled models of two case studies in Luxembourg, we asked a range of stakeholders to place colored or black PV within the townscapes in order to achieve an optimal energy yield for a neighbourhood.  

We also discussed the social, economic and environmental impacts of our designed townscapes to unravel the complex barriers to their realisation and adoption in policy.

Clara Schreck – CET meetings happen every year in the life of a PhD student. On such occasion, the student has to present all the research and activities done during the year to their jury members. In turn, the jury members will assess the scientific quality of the research and then decide whether the student can continue or not with the project. This is also the opportunity to guide the student for the upcoming year.

Today was my first CET meeting, and it was with great pleasure that I presented my research on liquid crystals and inkjet printing. My jury was happy with the presentation and gave me very interesting insight on my project. I am now officially a second-year PhD student with a lot of new ideas to test out in the lab!

Malte Helfer – In the course of the European Union’s orientation towards a sustainable, emission-free energy supply, a significant expansion of regenerative energy generation plants, especially wind power plants and photovoltaic installations, is to be expected. This will lead to profound changes in the familiar image of land- and cityscapes, also in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

The expansion of further inland wind energy plants is already often limited due to minimum distance regulations, and the potential for hydropower, biomass use and geothermal energy is also low, at least in Luxembourg. The further expansion of renewable electricity generation in the Grand Duchy will probably focus on photovoltaics.

So far, PV systems have largely been installed on roofs and only occasionally as larger systems in the landscape. With the increasing use of electric cars and the planned conversion not only of the electricity supply, but also of the approximately four times higher energy demand for heating buildings to regeneratively generated electricity, considerable additional areas will be needed. This means that in addition to the use of all suitable roofs, also facades and undeveloped land, including land used for agriculture, will increasingly have to be included in planning in the future.

In order to be able to assess such changes to the land and cityscape in advance, 3D models and AR simulations have recently been increasingly developed in construction and architecture. AR simulations are also already being used in the energy sector, especially to assess the visual impact of wind turbines visible from afar.

When using augmented reality to simulate possible PV installations in landscape and cityscape, the buildings and landscapes concerned are viewed through a mobile device, mobile phone or tablet, with a kind of virtual skin of additional information placed over the reality actually seen, in this case in the form of simulated solar PV panels.

This makes it possible to visualise the planned structural changes, allowing the viewer to move freely in their environment. This realistic representation can provide valuable decision-making aids for planning and can also be very helpful in discussions between planners and affected citizens, thus increasing public acceptance.

Mariam Tarhini – In the course of the past month, my collaborative efforts with the team have revolved around creating an in-depth survey aimed at unravelling public ideologies regarding renewable energy, particularly focusing on the acceptance of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. Along this journey, we discovered the profound influence of people’s lifestyles and attitudes on their acceptance of innovative renewable energy solutions.

As shown in existing literature, attitudes towards renewable energy technologies (RETs) significantly shape the likelihood of support for solar PV (negative attitudes towards RETs leads to a less likely acceptance to solar PV). A correlation also emerges: individuals unfamiliar with the advantages of RETs exhibit a diminished inclination to adopt and advocate for these technologies within their communities. This shows the importance of comprehending people’s worldviews (in this case communitarian, individualism, egalitarian and hierarchism), to understand how they subsequently influence others, and the reasons for and against implementation of solar PV and to understand what can be done to increase installation (Peters & Slovic, 1996, Sposato and Hampl, 2018).

In essence, this exploration aims to understand the intricate interplay between individual attitudes, communal influences, and the broader landscape of renewable energy adoption. It emphasises the need for targeted education and awareness campaigns to bridge the understanding gap, fostering a more widespread and informed acceptance of solar PV systems and other renewable energy solutions. As we delve into this survey’s findings, we gain not just insights into current perceptions but also a roadmap for cultivating a more sustainable and collectively embraced energy future.

I spent a week in a nice town in the Austrian mountains, following lectures on the latest research developments in the field of Photovoltaics. Famous professors from German and Luxemburgish universities presented their research during the day and led workshops in the evening. There are still a lot of questions to be answered regarding efficiency and stability of the newest technologies. During the few breaks and hikes, I also got to meet other young researchers currently doing their PhD or Post-Doc on similar topics to me. There were overall more than 15 different nationalities represented. Our discussions sparked new ideas and I came back enthusiastic to test some of them in the lab.