The Solar Academy is excited to announce that on March 21, 2025, Alexandre MATHIEU will be defending their thesis behind closed doors.
However, you’re all invited to join the public seminar the following week on March 27, 2025, at 2:00 PM at CSTB-Grenoble (also available online).
Alexandre will be presenting their research on guaranteeing the performance of rooftop photovoltaic systems, addressing key challenges related to commissioning, failure modeling, and maintenance optimization.
Thesis topic et summary: Methodology to guarantee performance of rooftop photovoltaic systems including failure modeling.
“In the urgent context of climate change, incentives towards greener energies have massively pushed photovoltaic (PV) systems to deploy worldwide. However, significant underperformances subsist due, notably, to the absence of a systematic commissioning assignment. Rooftop photovoltaic systems particularly face operational challenges because of their complex integration into buildings and a more expensive operation and maintenance. Therefore, a systematic performance guarantee becomes essential to minimize failures. The thesis aims to develop tools and introduce a methodological framework to guarantee the performance of any PV rooftop installation. Projection uncertainties and failures are analyzed through case studies. Monte Carlo simulations are used to estimate these uncertainties and model failures using a reliability engineering approach. Various diagnostics are then evaluated to optimize maintenance costs. The results show that shading, irradiance, and aging are the main sources of uncertainty for long term performance projections. Under the RCP 8.5 scenario, the impact of climate change remains limited on the case studies in France. Every single photovoltaic component has critical failures requiring regular inspection.“
If you’d like to attend, please send a message to Alexandre (on LinkedIn) by March 20, 2025 to be added to the guest list.
Don’t miss the opportunity to engage in this exciting discussion! 🌍🔋