International Expert Meeting at Intersolar Europe Conference

From June 6–10, the international solar industry will meet at the Intersolar Europe Conference to discuss the latest industry trends.

Around 200 speakers and 2,500 attendees are expected. The conference’s ever ex-panding content and high standard execution will this year, for the first time, be in the hands of the Intersolar Europe Conference Committee. The array of sessions, workshops and seminars will focus for example on solar heating, process heat and solar thermal power plants, as well as grid integration and innovative storage technologies.

This year, Intersolar Europe Conference will take place at Munich’s International Congress Center (ICM) at the New Munich Trade Fair Centre from June 6–10 – running two days prior to the world’s largest exhibition for the solar industry and during the exhibition itself. The conference takes the exhibition’s spectrum one step further. It builds on the exhibition themes and puts markets and technologies, industry and research in an international context. In addition to the areas of photovoltaics, PV production technology and solar thermal technology, the 200 speakers at the Intersolar Europe Conference will also shed light on the development of solar thermal power plants and focus on the future of emerging and existing markets. Visitors are invited to attend talks, workshops and seminars and also to engage in discussions with international experts during some networking events. 

Conference Committee ensures high standards
Intersolar Europe 2011 will mark the debut of the Intersolar Europe Conference Committee which boasts top class, internationally renowned experts. The committee consists of two Chairpersons, one for photovoltaics and one for solar thermal technologies, an Advisory Board and an Industry Board. Professor Dr. Gerhard P. Willeke, photovoltaics coordinator at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Freiburg and Chairman of photovoltaics, outlined the conference objectives,   “For a company to survive in the worldwide, explosively expanding solar market, it needs fundamental knowledge of current and future developments in the international industry. This is where the Intersolar Europe Conference comes in: it aims at presenting information in a clear and concise manner on technologies across the entire supply chain from materials and components, to systems and markets.” The Conference Committee wants to build on the program’s already high standards in future conferences. “It has put together know-how spanning all areas of the solar industry to meet the high standards of Intersolar and to further boost the conference’s appeal with its extensive program tailored to mirror the exhibition,” said Dr.-Ing. Harald Drück, Chairperson of solar thermal and Head of the Research and Testing Center for Thermal Solar Systems (TZS) at the Institute of Thermodynamics and Thermal Engineering (ITW) at the University of Stuttgart, Germany.

Conference sessions, workshops and seminars
This year, the Intersolar Europe Conference will shine the spotlight on grid integration and innovative storage technologies, two of the main topics within the field of photovoltaics. The sessions “PV Power Plants” and “PV Grid Integration & Energy Storage” provide a comprehensive overview of the status quo and possible future trends, while “European Markets” and “Global Markets” will focus on developments in international photovoltaics (PV) and will kick off the conference on Monday. More detailed market information on PV markets in Germany, California, India and the MENA Region will be given on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Technical innovations in the manufacturing of solar cells and PV modules will be presented in the sessions “Thin Film – Technological Advancements”, “Crystalline Silicon PV – Technological Advancements” and “7th Advanced PV Manufacturing Forum”. The session “Balance of Systems", taking place on Wednesday, will focus on further developments in inverter technology.

The sessions on solar thermal technologies will include information on current trends and developments in the fields of solar heating, process heat and solar thermal power plants. These sessions are “Solar Collectors – Technology & Manufacturing”, “Large Scale Systems and Solar District Heating”, “Solar Process Heat – Industrial Applications” and “Concentrated Solar Power CSP”. 

In addition to the conference sessions, workshops and seminars will address industry topics with a practical approach. There will be workshops and seminars held both in English and in German. Please visit the Conference Area of this website to download the complete conference program.