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Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani

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Related publications (35)

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Long-Term Performance and Shade Detection in Building Integrated Photovoltaic Systems

Christophe Ballif, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Andrew Wayne Fairbrother

Building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) operate in a unique environment compared with field-mounted systems and may experience elevated temperatures and recurrent or persistent shading. These stresses are expected to accelerate degradation, but there are ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2021

Long-term performance and reliability of silicon heterojunction solar modules

Christophe Ballif, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Olatz Arriaga Arruti

The high-efficiency silicon heterojunction (SHJ) technology is now perceived mature enough to enter the Giga-Watt manufacturing scale with several players around the globe. The growth of the SHJ technology requires confidence from manufacturers, investors, ...

2023

Encapsulant Selection for PID Resistant Modules Made with Heterojunction Solar Cells

Christophe Ballif, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Luca Gnocchi

Recent studies showed that SHJ solar cells can be prone to PID when encapsulated with a low volume resistivity encapsulant, such as ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA). These studies also demonstrated that their degradation mechanism is different from Al-BSF modu ...

EU PVSEC Proceedings2020

Modeling Potential-Induced Degradation (PID) of Field-Exposed Crystalline Silicon Solar PV Modules: Focus on a Regeneration Term

Christophe Ballif, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Fanny Sculati-Meillaud, Eleonora Annigoni

IEEE2017

Quantifying and Modeling the Impact of Interconnection Failures on the Electrical Performance of Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Modules

Christophe Ballif, Matthieu Despeisse, Antonin Faes, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Jacques Levrat, Eleonora Annigoni

We present an electrical model developed with LT SPICE that simulates the performance of a string of cells with disconnections in the electrical circuit. In a previous contribution, we quantified experimentally how the module performance is affected when o ...

IEEE2018

Stability of inks used for masking metallic interconnects in BIPV modules

Christophe Ballif, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Alejandro Borja Block

The necessity to reduce carbon emissions has pushed European institutions to foster the adoption - for new buildings - of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings, which need to minimize energy consumption with energy generated on site. This opens up an enormous poten ...

2021

Correlating long-term performance and aging behaviour of building integrated PV modules

Christophe Ballif, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Ebrar Özkalay

Because building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) modules are fully integrated into a building envelope, the back of the module can be exposed to little or no ventilation, resulting in increased operating temperatures. As the temperature increases, the perfo ...

Elsevier Science Sa2024

Stability of black interconnect coatings for solar photovoltaic module applications

Christophe Ballif, Antonin Faes, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Martin Ledinsky, Alejandro Borja Block

Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) are dual purpose, providing both energy and building functions. Aesthetics play a crucial role in the BIPV market, with increasing demand for uniformly colored modules for building skins. Achieving this requires hid ...

2023

Potential Induced Degradation Mechanism in Rear-Emitter Bifacial Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells Encapsulated in Different Module Structures

Christophe Ballif, Quentin Thomas Jeangros, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Luca Gnocchi, Olatz Arriaga Arruti

Recent studies showed that silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells can be prone to potential induced degradation (PID) when encapsulated with ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA). Here, to gain understanding in the role of EVA, we perform PID test in humid condit ...

IEEE2021

The carbon intensity of integrated photovoltaics

Christophe Ballif, Nicolas Würsch, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Alejandro Borja Block

To assess the meaningfulness of installing solar photovoltaics in buildings and infrastructures, we consider a carbon intensity (CI) balance perspective and assess whether installing PV at different orientations acts as a net CO2 sink or source, when compa ...

2023

A 3D indicator for guiding AI applications in the energy sector

Christophe Ballif, Nicolas Würsch, Laure-Emmanuelle Perret Aebi, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Christian Rod, Hugo James André Quest, Marine Dominique Cauz, Fabian Heymann

The utilisation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in the energy sector is gaining momentum, with increasingly intensive search for suitable, high-quality and trustworthy solutions that displayed promising results in research. The growing interes ...

2022

The Front and Rear Side Contributions to the Potential Induced Degradation of Bifacial Silicon Heterojunction Solar Modules

Christophe Ballif, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Luca Gnocchi, Olatz Arriaga Arruti, Fabiana Lisco

38th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 573-577 Recent studies showed that silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells may be prone to potential induced degradation (PID), when encapsulated with a low volume resistivity ethylene vin ...

WIP2021

Development of Pid-resistant Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells

Christophe Ballif, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Olatz Arriaga Arruti

In this abstract, we focus on reinforcing silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells against degradation mechanisms induced by moisture and high-negative voltages. In order to verify that, the solar cells are encapsulated in a glass/backsheet (G/BS) module s ...

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers2024

Monitoring the Operating Temperatures of Modules in Open-Rack and Typical BIPV Configurations

Christophe Ballif, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Andrew Wayne Fairbrother, Ebrar Özkalay

Elevated operating temperatures are expected in BIPV systems due to restricted or reduced rear-side ventilation, which impacts their performance and reliability. This work reports operating temperatures and diurnal (day-night) temperature variations of the ...

IEEE2021

A "combi-encapsulant" for enhanced performance of glass-free lightweight crystalline silicon solar PV modules

Christophe Ballif, Alessandro Francesco Aldo Virtuani, Fabiana Lisco

Lightweight crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV modules with a weight of 5kg/m(2), by substituting the typical front glass with a thin polymer sheet and the standard back sheet by a composite sandwich structure are presented here. With this work, we propose the ...

IEEE2021