Solarise

What is Solarise?

The Interreg 2 Seas project SOLARISE boosts the adoption of solar energy in historical and public buildings and for households with a focus on low-income families and also shows future technologies through living labs. Another aim is to lower the impact of the solar renewables on the electricity grid by, for example, installing storage capacity.

Through developing guidance, tools, business cases, SOLARISE wants to facilitate the broad roll-out of new solar and storage technologies. By experimenting in demonstration projects and living labs, SOLARISE wants to eliminate legal and organisational barriers and develop viable business cases. More information about the Solarise project can be found on this website.

Living Lab KU Leuven

The active awning at the Living Lab demonstrates a range of these technologies for visitors and students at the Faculty of Engineering Technology. These include bifacial PV modules (sunlight is captured on both the front and back of the module), or semi-transparent modules for use in agrivoltaic (=combination of PV and agriculture) applications, as well as coloured modules that provide aesthetic benefits. The active awning and its modules will permit evaluations of the benefits of DC-DC optimisers to reduce mismatch between the different modules.

The active awning in front of the Living Lab hosts 10 PV modules, showing the variety of PV modules available on the market, and the evolution over the past decades.

The Living Lab illustrates a variety of solar technologies and related enabling technologies. The Living Lab has:

• Two PVT (PV-thermal) systems on the roof of the Living Lab with their hot water storage tanks inside the lab, connected with additional PV modules to an inverter, all PV and PVT modules using optimizers to reduce electrical mismatch;

• An active awning with PV modules in front of the Living Lab showcasing varieties of PV modules throughout the years, connected to an educational switching matrix which permits users to connect the PV modules directly to the inverter, or via dedicated optimizers;

• A Lithium-ion (Iron phosphate, LFP) battery connected to a bidirectional inverter to manage PV variability;

• A thermal “ice battery”, consisting of a heat pump connected to an insulated water tank, capable of holding approximately 330 kWh of thermal energy;

• Various metered electrical loads in the living lab (lights, heater, controllable electrical load);

• Multiple PV, PVT and ambient temperature measurements, combined with irradiance measurements in the plane-of-the-array.

All of the measured data points are captured and saved at 15 second resolution in a local database for future analysis and use in the Living Lab.