Alessandro Virtuani

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Alessandro Virtuani is founder of Officina del Sole. He is a physicist with 18 yrs experience in the field of solar PV and renewable energies. He obtained a PhD in Materials Sciences from the University of Milan Bicocca (2004), carrying out is research activity on the optimization of CIGS thin film solar cells/modules at ZSW (Stuttgart). From 2006 to 2009 he was employed as scientific officer at ESTI (European Solar Test Installation) labs (JRC – European Commission, Ispra), and then joined the Swiss PV Module Test Centre of SUPSI (Lugano, 2009-2015). In 2014, he obtained a Global Executive MBA degree from SDA-Bocconi School of Management. In 20016, he has served as technical advisor to IFC (World Bank group) with a mandate to investigate a sustainable and bankable diffusion of solar PV in Africa with a focus on rooftop solar plants. Since 2016, he is a part-time senior researcher at the PV-Lab of EPFL (Neuchatel) where he is responsible for the solar PV module and reliability group. He has been involved in several national/European R&D projects mainly related to device development, performance and reliability testing, energy yield and modelling of PV devices. He has experience with PV module/system technology, with BIPV (Building Integrated PV) related projects, with technology transfer to industry and with project management of complex projects. With 9 yrs experience in ISO17025-accredited testing laboratories, he has a solid background in metrology. He is the inventor of the DragonBackTM measurement method for the testing of high-efficient silicon devices, author or co-author of 70+ scientific/technical publications and is a member of the EUPVTP (European Innovation & Technology PV Platform) and paper-review expert for the European EUPVSEC and the American ieee-PVSC Conferences and other scientific journals.