'
The Mib-solar research centre actively participated in organising the First Conference of the Italian Photovoltaic Network (ReteIFV), held at the University of Milan-Bicocca on 22 and 23 June. Here is a brief report from the organising committee.
“Dear Colleagues,
a few days after this important and well-attended meeting of the Italian research and innovation community in the photovoltaic sector, we are writing to you first to renew our heartfelt thanks for having actively contributed to the initiative’s success.
Special thanks are undoubtedly due to those who made their time and resources available free of charge to organise this first national conference of the ReteIFV, enabling us to offer an efficient and high-quality service without charging a registration fee.
Thanks to our colleagues at Bicocca who worked hard to prepare and manage the services we enjoyed over those two days, and to our colleagues at ETA Florence who provided all the information services and collected and processed the beautiful images they made available to us.
We had the impression that this event was long awaited by the entire community, and the quality of the papers presented, combined with the great participation from the first to the last minute, was unequivocal proof that the Network is not an abstract concept but a reality in which the passion for science and technology is intimately linked to the awareness of operating in a sector that is decisive for the energy transition towards carbon neutrality.
To increase the quality of research on photovoltaics carried out in our country and the impact of the results on industrial supply chains and, ultimately, on the energy transition process that is indispensable for combating climate change and ensuring energy security in environmental and social sustainability, it is essential to work collaboratively in the spirit of Horizon Europe’s ‘mission statement’.
The White Paper we produced and published in 2020 thanks to the guidance of the SET Plan and the support of the European project PV IMPACT, was the first effort to translate this common awareness into a real strategic vision that would bring together research, industrial strategies and energy policy. Since then, many things have happened that make an update of this common strategic vision indispensable and urgent.
This is why we structured the last part of the Milan conference in working groups that had the task of starting this path, which we hope to complete by the end of the year. In Milan there was only time to outline the objectives of the work to be done. Now is the time to concretely organise the work by giving the working groups an identity and an appropriate organisation:
1. The Network of Italian R&I laboratories dealing with photovoltaics and national strategic projects
2. Training and the National Photovoltaic Doctorate
3. Strategic photovoltaic supply chains in Italy
4. Tools and strategies for energy transition: the role of photovoltaics.
Those of you who are interested in continuing the work started in Milan by participating in the activities of one of these working groups are invited to indicate your interest by filling in the following form where you can also express your views on other proposals of the Network Coordination Group (feel free to forward this link to other colleagues interested in the PV Network who were not present at the Milan Conference):
https://forms.office.com/e/VQ6r8M4WFf
The activities of the 4 working groups will be described on the website and will be coordinated in the ReteIFV workspace already active on Microsoft Teams. Those who register will receive all the instructions on participating and using these tools.
The material produced for the Bicocca Conference and made available by the respective authors will also soon be accessible on Teams. On the other hand, the Conference book of abstracts is still available and freely consultable, where you can select papers according to authors and their institutions and by keywords in the text of the abstracts.
Awaiting your feedback, we thank you once again and remind you of the appointment for the Second National Conference of the ReteIFV to be held in Bolzano on 11 and 12 June 2024.
See you soon!
The Conference Organising Committee:
Simona Binetti, David Moser, Claudia Barolo, Aldo Di Carlo, Franco Roca, Salvatore Guastella, Giovanni Spagnuolo, Paola Delli Veneri, Fabrizio Bizzarri, Angela Grassi, Marilena Rago, Massimo Mazzer”.