Christophe BallifChristophe Ballif is director of the Phototovoltaics and Thin Film Electronics Laboratoryb) (PV-Lab at the institute of microengineering (IMT) in Neuchâtel (part of the EPFL since 2009). The lab focus is on the science and technology of high efficiency heterojunction crystalline cells,so-called passivating contacts for solar cells, multi-junction solar cells include novel generation Perovskite on innovative optical high speed detector and on various macroelectronics application. It also deals with energy management with a focus on integration of solar electricity into the energy system. The PV-Lab has strongly contributed to technology transfer and industrialization of novel devices and full technology with numerous companies. Christophe Ballif graduated as a physicist from the EPFL in 1994, where he also obtained in 1998 his Phd degree working on novel PV materials. He accomplished his postdoctoral research at NREL (Golden, US) on compound semiconductor solar cells (CIGS and CdTe). He worked then at the Fraunhofer ISE (Ge) on crystalline silicon photovoltaics (monocrystalline and multi-crystalline) until 2003 and then at the EMPA in Thun (CH) before becoming full professor at the University of Neuchâtel IMT in 2004, taking over the chair of Prof. A. Shah. Since 2013, C.Ballif is also the director of the new CSEM PV-Center, also located in Neuchâtel. The CSEM PV-Center is focussing more on industrialisation and technology transfer in the field of solar energy, including solar electricity management and storage. At the core of the CSEM PV-center activities lies several "pilot lines" for various kinds of solar cells manufacturing, with a focus coating technologies, wet chemistry processes for crystalline silicon, metalisation techniques for solar cells, and a platform for developing "ideal packaging solutions and polymers" for PV modules. In addition, joined facitilites between CSEM and EPFL of over 800 m2 are available for modules manufacturing, measuring and accelerated aging. CSEM PV-center has also full team dedicated to storage and energy systems and operates a joined center with BFH in Biel for research on electrochemical storage. He (co-) authored over 500 journal and technical papers, as well as several patents. He is an elected member of the SATW, member of the scientific council of the Swiss AEE, and member of the board of the EPFL Energy center. In 2016, he recieved the Becquerel prize for his contributions to the field of high efficiency photovoltaics.
Roberto CastelloRoberto Castello is a senior scientist and group leader at the EPFL Laboratory of Solar Energy and Building Physics. Physicist by training, he has extensive experience in collecting, classifying and interpreting large datasets using advanced data mining techniques and statistical methods. He received his MSc (2007) in Particle Physics and PhD (2010) in Physics and Astrophysics from the University of Torino. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Belgian National Research Fund (2011-2014) and at the CERN Experimental Physics Department (2015-2017) as a research fellow and data scientist. He is primary author of more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and he presented at major international conferences in the high energy physics domain.
In 2018 he joined the Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory (LESO-PB) to work on data mining and Machine Learning techniques for the built environment and renewable energy. His main research interests are: spatio-temporal modeling of renewable energy potential, energy consumption forecasting techniques, anomaly detection, and computer vision techniques for automated classification in the built environment.
He leads the group of Urban Data Mining, Intelligence and Simulation at LESO-PB and he is a member of the NRP75 Big Data project (HyEnergy) of the Swiss National Science Foundation. He is a member of the Swiss Competence Centre for Energy Research (SCCER) and deputy leader of the working group on Leveraging Ubiquitous Energy Data. He has served as a scientific committee member, workshop organizer and speaker at international conferences (ICAE 2020, Applied Machine Learning Days 2019 and 2020, CISBAT 2019 and 2021 and SDS2020).
Since 2017 he is member of the Geneva 2030 Ecosystem network, promoting the United Nations agenda towards the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Philippe ThalmannOriginaire de Malters (LU), Philippe Thalmann est né à Lausanne en 1963. Il est licencié en économie politique de l'Université de Lausanne en 1984, où il a aussi obtenu le diplôme postgrade dans la même branche en 1986. M. Thalmann est entré dans le programme doctoral en économie de l'Université Harvard (Cambridge, E.-U.) en 1986 et l'a achevé avec le doctorat (Ph.D.) en 1990. De retour en Suisse, il est nommé maître-assistant à l'Université de Genève pour y enseigner l'économie et les finances publiques, puis professeur assistant à l'Université de Lausanne en 1993, pour y enseigner l'économétrie appliquée et l'économie nationale. En 1994, M. Thalmann est nommé professeur extraordinaire à l'EPFL (aujourd'hui professeur associé). Lors de la réorganisation de l'EPFL en 2000, il réoriente sa chaire de l'économie de la construction vers l'économie de l'environnement naturel et construit.
Frank VöhringerExpertise
Environmental EconomicsEconomics of Climate ChangeComputable General Equilibrium Modeling
Enseignement et PhD A co-dirigé les thèses EPFL de Sophie Maire, Takafumi Usui Cours Models for applied environmental economics ENV-723
Giancarlo Ferrari TrecateExpertise
Automatic control, Dependable control, Neural-network Control, Machine learning, Microgrids, Hybrid systems
Mission
See the webpage of the DECODE (Dependable Control and Decision) group.
Teaching & PhD PhD Students Laura Meroi, Julien Pallage, Nicolas Léo Pierre Kirsch, Simone Baratto, Daniele Martinelli, Riccardo Cescon, Jakob Nylöf, Sabri El Amrani Past EPFL PhD Students Pulkit Nahata, Mustafa Sahin Turan, Baiwei Guo, Jean-Sébastien Brouillon, Clara Galimberti, Andrea Martin, Muhammad Zakwan,
Demetri PsaltisEnseignement et PhD Doctorant·es actuel·les Victoria Fay, Colin Nikhil Christian A dirigé les thèses EPFL de Wuzhou Song, Alexandre Goy, Julien Cuennet, Ioannis Papadopoulos, Xin Yang, Grégoire Pierre Jean Laporte, Thomas Jean Victor Marie Lanvin, Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini Hashemi, Nicolino Stasio, Morteza Hasani Shoreh, Marilisa Romito, Pooria Hadikhani, Eirini Kakkava, Joowon Lim, Giulia Panusa, Ahmed Bassam Sayed Ayoub Mohamed Ayoub, Amirhossein Saba, Niyazi Ulas Dinç A co-dirigé les thèses EPFL de Ugur
Daniel Alexander Florez OrregoEnseignement et PhD Doctorant·es actuel·les Vibhu Baibhav Cours Advanced energetics ME-451 Méthodes pour l'utilisation rationnelle et la conversion de l'énergie dans les processus industriels: comment analyser l'utilisation de l'énergie, calculer la récupération de chaleur par analyse de pincement, définir le réseau d'échangeurs thermiques et réaliser une analyse exergétique.
Zhaoming QinEducation M.Sc | Control Scince and Engineering 2019 – 2022 Tsinghua University B.Eng | Automation 2015 – 2019 Beihang University
