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Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Chicago

Increasing solar cell and carbon management efficiency through materials chemistry and systems engineering
Solar photovoltaics are now performing substantially above the single-junction limit, thanks to major strides in understanding perovskite semiconductors of diverse bandgaps, and in controlling the materials chemistry and resultant electronic states of interfaces to these materials. I will discuss how this chemistry and device physics are advancing the field, and will review progress in durability science of these materials stacks, as well as the roadmap for further advances.

Ted Sargent is on the faculty of Northwestern University, focused on renewable energy, light sensing, and carbon capture and utilization. From 1998 to 2022, he was a professor at the University of Toronto, where he was Vice President for Research and Innovation. He is Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; and of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2007 he founded InVisage Technologies, which developed image sensors for smartphone cameras. InVisage (Menlo Park) was acquired by Apple in 2017. Sargent has published over 1000 papers. These have been cited 180,000 times. 100 of these papers have been published in Nature, Science, and journals such as Nature Energy and Nature Sustainability. He is inventor on 118 US patents. Sargent is Director of the Trienens Institute, Northwestern University鈥檚 energy and sustainability institute. Sargent is a Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors, NAI.

Department of Computational Chemical Physics, University of Twente

What theory can tell us about materials for solar cells
The development of new solar cell materials is often portrayed as an experimental challenge. Yet, theoretical modelling and first-principles simulations have played a central role in uncovering why some materials work exceptionally well, while others fail. In this talk I will illustrate how modern electronic-structure theory helps us understand, predict, and even design materials for solar energy conversion. Using halide perovskites as a case study, I will highlight the insights gained over the last decade and discuss how theory continues to guide the search for efficient, stable, and sustainable solar absorbers.

Linn Leppert is Professor of Computational Chemical Physics at the University of Twente. She received her PhD from the University of Bayreuth in 2013 and worked as a Humboldt Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and as group leader in Bayreuth before joining Twente in 2020. Her group uses advanced computer simulations to understand and predict how novel materials convert light into electricity, with a special focus on halide perovskites. Among others, she has been awarded an NWO Vidi grant and serves on the board of Computational Science NL, contributing to shaping the future of computational science in the Netherlands.

Energy programme, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford

Beyond technology: Justice and sufficiency in the energy transition
Energy demand reduction has been critical to Europe鈥檚 progress towards Net Zero, but its contribution is often overlooked. Without further demand reduction, meeting 2050 goals is highly unlikely. Demand reduction will combine energy sufficiency with energy efficiency and electrification. There is good evidence that energy sufficiency can help deliver a lower-cost, more just, net zero energy system. Sufficiency is discussed with an exploration of what it could mean in practice for householders and the building sector, recognising its political challenges. By broadening debates about our energy future, and focusing on demand, we can help enable a just transition.

Tina Fawcett is Associate Professor and Deputy Leader of the Energy Programme, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. Her research concerns energy use by households and organisations, and uses a multi-disciplinary approach to understand energy demand and to explore policies for the energy transition. Tina leads social research in the programme and heads a new initiative on climate leadership. She is involved in climate change education, recently as part of the team. Tina is Convenor of the which brings together energy researchers and facilitates knowledge exchange.

Control and Robotics Lab at ETSI Telecomunicaci贸n, Universidad Polit茅cnica de Madrid

From Insect Societies to Local Energy Communities: Unleashing Distributed Demand-Side Management
This keynote presents a swarm intelligence鈥搃nspired approach to distributed Demand-Side Management (DSM)  for improving electrical grid efficiency. By mimicking coordination strategies from insect societies, the proposed self-organized algorithms enable consumption smoothing without centralized control or user data sharing. Two DSM frameworks are explored: local, focused on self-consumption, and grid-aware, enabling collective coordination across facilities. By using swarm intelligence dynamics, the system aligns consumption patterns to reduce variability and enhance renewable integration. The approach offers robustness and scalability, making it a promising solution for managing energy in local energy communities, supporting the transition to decentralized and sustainable power systems.

脕lvaro Guti茅rrez holds a Ph.D. in Telecommunications Engineering and is Full Professor at Universidad Polit茅cnica de Madrid specializing in systems engineering and automation, leading the Control and Robotics Lab (Robolabo) at ETSI Telecomunicaci贸n. His research focuses on artificial intelligence, swarm intelligence and decentralized control applied to robotics, bioengineering and energy systems. He has led over 60 R&D projects and published more that 100 papers with more than 3,000 citations. Senior IEEE member, he has held key academic leadership roles and supervised multiple Ph.D. theses. He is also a tech entrepreneur, co-founding three companies and actively contributing to technology transfer and innovation.

Department of Applied Sciences, OST Eastern Switzerland University

Aluminium as an energy carrier that heats homes and provides electricity in winter
Carbon free production of aluminium by renewable electricity opens new possibilities for this material as a Renewable Metal Energy Carrier (ReMEC) that can deliver heat and electricity wherever and whenever needed 鈥� for example at peak demand times in winter. The presentation will give insights into the innovative aluminium energy storage cycle and the EU Horizon project REVEAL-storage, that developed the key elements for this application: the charging process that produces aluminium from its oxide by inert-electrode electrolysis, and the discharging process that oxidizes the alumimium again whle producing hydrogen and heat.

Michel Haller holds a Master degree in Environmental Sciences of ETH Z眉rich and a PhD from Graz University of Technology. He is Head of Research at the SPF Institute for Solar Technology at Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences (OST) since 2015, and vice head of Institute since this year.

His personal expertise are:

• Energy Storage, in particular Renewable Metal Energy Carriers and Thermal Stratification and Exergetic Performance of Water Storage
• Solar thermal and PV combinations with heat pumps
• System simulations
• Legionella in hot water systems