PLENARY 3: The Circular Opportunity in Photovoltaics
Solar photovoltaics has the potential to become the first truly circular energy technology. The talk explores the current status and lines out necessary developments to get there.
Speakers
Dr. Ian Marius Peters
Dr. Ian Marius Peters is a physicist whose work combines photovoltaic innovation with a vision for a truly sustainable energy future. With a Ph.D. from the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg and over two decades of experience in solar energy research, he has authored more than 300 scientific publications spanning photovoltaics, artificial intelligence in energy, techno-economics, and renewable energy systems. His career has taken him across leading global institutions — from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) in Freiburg, to the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) — where he has helped shape the scientific and technological foundations of modern solar research. Today, Dr. Peters leads the High Throughput Field Inspections and Recycling Group at the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy (HI-ERN), part of Forschungszentrum Jülich, where his team develops concepts around cradle-to-cradle design of photovoltaic modules.