Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development
Energy: Photovoltaics, the world's largest conference with ENEA as general chair opens in Milan
The 8th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC), the most important international conference on photovoltaics combining the world's three leading photovoltaic events,[1] is under way in Milan at MiCo, the Milan Convention Centre, until Friday the 30th. Scientists, exhibitors and representatives of 180 companies and the research world from more than 50 countries will discuss the most significant advances and innovations on the path to generating electricity from the sun through increasingly innovative, efficient, sustainable and architecturally integrable photovoltaic technologies. For the first time the work will be coordinated by a woman and Italian researcher, Alessandra Scognamiglio of ENEA and the ENEA President Gilberto Dialuce also spoke at the opening ceremony.
The conference programme is divided into five main topics: silicon materials and cells; emerging technologies; engineering; applications; and energy transition, understood as a multidisciplinary effort to ensure the deployment of photovoltaic technologies on a global scale and a key element of the ecological transition.
A large Italian contingent is expected at the event, which is held every four years. ENEA will present the latest results of the activities carried out at the Portici (Naples) and Casaccia (Rome) research centres, specifically: high-efficiency solar cells, smart photovoltaics, new materials and devices, innovative technologies and prototypes for module manufacturing, digital evolution of photovoltaic systems, applications of distributed sensing and computational intelligence algorithms for site and solar resource characterisation.
The conference will also be an opportunity to present the results of the National Sustainable Agrivoltaic Network launched in 2021 by ENEA with the support of ETA Florence Renewable Energies, which to date has over 950 members including companies, institutions, universities and trade associations, both foreign and domestic, ranging from the agricultural to the energy sector. The network aims to promote the definition of the regulatory framework of the sector and of tools to support decision-makers in building plants that allow the production of electricity from solar panels while at the same time cultivating the land. At the conference prizes will also be awarded to the winning projects of the “Agrivoltaics for Noah's Ark”, an international competition for the design of the best agrivoltaic garden.
Introducing Alessandra Scognamiglio, the first Italian woman to chair WCPEC. A graduate in Architecture, with a doctorate in Environmental and Architectural Technologies, she is specialised in the integration of photovoltaics in buildings and the landscape and is the coordinator of the ENEA Sustainable Agrivoltaic task force, to set up the first national network of companies, institutions, universities and trade associations in the sector, to define the methodological and regulatory framework for the design and assessment of systems and support tools for decision-makers and to promote Italian excellence in the field of new technologies for renewable energy, agriculture and the landscape.
For more information:
Alessandra Scognamiglio, ENEA - Researcher at the ENEA Innovative Devices Laboratory at the Portici Research Centre, coordinator of the “AgrivoltaicoSostenibile@ENEA” task force - Email:
For the event: “PHOTOVOLTAICS | FORMS | LANDSCAPES”