Conférence
Environnement
CLIMACT Seminar Series - Mario Paolone & Christophe Ballif
The CLIMACT seminar series “How to move forward and act on climate change” is an interactive online event. It takes place twice a month, every second Monday during your lunch break, with two new speakers. Each episode aims to strengthen the dialogue and collaboration between key UNIL and EPFL scientists, swiss politicians, entrepreneurs and various actors from the civil society, through collective reflection. A wide range of climate change-related topics will be discussed, integrating perspectives from all sectors and academic disciplines in order to generate new leads and initiatives towards systemic solutions. Participants are welcome to take part in the discussion in English or French.
- Date
- Horaires
- Lieu
- Vortex, On Zoom
- Format
- Présentiel
Zoom link: epfl.zoom.us/j/63821341998
A European perspective on climate changes and its impact on power systems
Presented by Mario Paolone I Professor, Distributed Electrical Systems Laboratory I EPFL
Modern power systems are characterized by an increasing share of electricity production from distributed and renewable stochastic generation. In the European Union, the renewable energy shares vary from 5% to 54% with countries experiencing penetration levels of wind and solar power generation larger than 20% of their overall annual electricity consumption. Controlling heterogenous, stochastic and distributed power generation connected to medium and low voltage power grids is crucial to displace centralized electricity generation in favor of renewables.
This change of paradigm, however, largely impacts the planning and operational practices of both distribution system operators (DSOs) and transmission system operators (TSOs). Indeed, DSOs may face significant issues associated with grid reinforcements and capability of being dispatched, while TSOs experience increasing needs for allocating and deploying regulating power reserves. Within this context, the talk discusses the challenges and needs for both DSOs and TSOs and the recent developments to address these needs.
Progress and role of photovoltaics in the global and local energy transition
Presented by Christophe Ballif I Professor and Director of the Photovoltaics and Thin Film Electronics Laboratory at EPFL and Director of the Sustainable Energy Center CSEM
In this presentation we’ll review the recent developments of photovoltaics, in terms of production volume, costs, efficiency and sustainability. In particular we’ll show how multiple improvements in production technologies make PV a greener and greener product in terms of energy pay-back time and CO2 content. We’ll also show how photovoltaics will take part to the energy transition, in complementarity with many different energy sources and with storage. We’ll address the questions of “how much PV is needed” and, briefly of “how to integrate it”. With spectacular progresses and mass implementation, leading today to a cumulative PV systems installation of 1 Terawatt, is it reasonable to think that PV will become the leading electricity and energy sources with over 40 TW installed by 2050?