AgriVoltaics Summer School

For the very first time, the AgriVoltaics Conference 2025 will offer an AgriVoltaics Summer School during the week after the conference, from Monday, July 7 to Friday, July 11, 2025. The AgriVoltaics Summer School, hosted by Fraunhofer ISE, is a unique opportunity for researchers, students, and professionals to deepen their knowledge of agrivoltaics.

Still interested in registering for the AgriVoltaics Summer School? Registration is still open!

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The AgriVoltaics Summer School will take place at the Solar Info Center Freiburg, which is located near the AgriVoltaics World Conference venue.

This five-day immersive program will cover key topics related to agrivoltaics, including business models, agriculture, PV technology, environmental impact, and socio-economic aspects. Participants will engage in interactive lectures, hands-on sessions, and discussions led by experts from academia and industry.

The language of the Summer School is English.

Program Overview

Each day of the Summer School will focus on a specific topic:

• Monday (Business Focus): Market trends, business models, and project development insights from France, Italy, and Germany.
• Tuesday (Agriculture Focus): Plant physiology, agricultural practices, and crop modeling.
• Wednesday (PV Technology Focus): Fundamentals of PV technology, agrivoltaic module technologies, and tracking algorithms.
• Thursday (Environmental Focus): Microclimate modeling, biodiversity, soil topics, and life cycle assessments.
• Friday (Socio-Economic Focus): Economic considerations, legal aspects, standardization, and social acceptance.

Beyond the Classroom

In addition to expert lectures, Summer School participants can attend:

• Networking dinners – Engage with fellow participants and experts.
• City Tour of Freiburg – Explore the historic and sustainable city at the heart of the energy transition.
• Farewell Dinner – Celebrate the conclusion of an enriching week! 

A detailed agenda will be posted here at a later date.

Fees and Additional Information

Location:

The AgriVoltaics Summer School will take place at the Solar Info Center Freiburg, which is located near the AgriVoltaics World Conference venue. Solar Info Center Freiburg's address is:
Emmy-Noether-Str. 2
79110 Freiburg
Germany

The AgriVoltaics Summer School tickets include:

• Participation in all sessions of the week (Week Ticket) or the session of the chosen day (Day Ticket)
• Daily lunch breaks
• Two daily coffee breaks
• Certificate of attendance (upon request)

Please note:

• You can choose between a Week Ticket or one or more Day Tickets.
• Reduced fees are offered to students (including doctoral students), who have purchased a student ticket for the AgriVoltaics World Conference 2025.
• Potential costs for dinner or coffee breaks incurred during the side events are at the attendee's expense.
• Accommodation is not included in the registration fee and will not be arranged by the organizer. Participants are responsible for making their own accommodation arrangements.

Summer School Lecturers

David Schuppisser

David leads Insolight’s commercial development, including business development, marketing and project acquisition across several markets. Prior to joining Insolight, David was an associate at McKinsey & Co where he conducted served clients for business strategy, M&A and operational excellence across industries ranging from renewables to pharmaceuticals through global public health and private banking. David has also worked in diplomacy at the Swiss embassy in Venezuela for political reporting and humanitarian project oversight. He has academic research experience focused on photocatalysis at the Berkeley National Lab. David holds a MSc. in Physics from EPFL. He speaks fluent English, French, Spanish and German.

Emma Azeau

After studying urban engineering in Paris (EIVP) and Boston (Boston University), Emma Azeau worked in China and France on sustainable urban development projects. She joined Statkraft in France in 2020 to develop solar and wind power projects, then moved to the headquarters in Oslo as R&D advisor for New Energy Solutions. For over 2 years, she has been leading “The AgriPower Initiative” for the Statkraft group. The role of this corporate initiative is to gather and organize agrivoltaism knowledge from the different countries of the group, to advise on best practices, to build tailor-made tools to develop quality agrivoltaics projects as well as to support agrivoltaics deployment strategies. Emma believes it is important to build more R&D projects on agrivoltaics, both to demonstrate with scientific data the benefits for certain types of agriculture and to improve the practices of solar developers. Agrivoltaics is based on common-sense principles, but also on a tailor-made, project-based approach.

Matthew Sturchio

Matthew Sturchio is a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University where he researches agroecological synergies for agrivoltaic applications. He also co-leads the Ecovoltaics Research Group at Colorado State University. Matthew’s research is focused on quantifying the ecological consequences of solar development in natural and agriculturally managed lands. He uses a diverse training background, spanning from plant ecophysiology to ecosystem ecology, to better understand how dynamic microclimates created by solar arrays alter plant and ecosystem response.

Stephan Schindele

In 2020, Dr. Stephan Schindele joined BayWa r.e. AG as Head of Product Management Agri-PV. In this function, he supports the global Agri-PV project development efforts by commercially, legally, and technically standardising BayWa r.e.’s Agri-PV solutions. Before joining BayWa r.e., Stephan worked at Fraunhofer ISE where he built up the new business field of Agri-PV (2010-2020), wrote numerous publications and finished his PhD on the topic of Sustainable Land Use and Agri-PV (2023). Stephan received several awards for his work on Agri-PV. Furthermore, he was Vice Chair for the Land-use and Permitting workstream at SolarPowerEurope (2022-2024), taught Energy & Climate Policy at Reutlingen University (2015-2020), worked as Site Event & Exhibit Assistant for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 2009 & 2011) and was an Intern for the German Solar Industry Association BSW-Solar (2008). He holds an MBA from the California State University East Bay (2011). Stephan is passionate about cross-sectorial collaboration along the Food-Energy-Water-Biodiversity Nexus. Stephan is r.e.sponsible to develop Agri-PV solutions and shares knowledge across countries and functions to speed up BayWa r.e.’s Climate Change Mitigation & Adaptation efforts.

Jana Kalmbach

Since October 2020, Jana has been working as a research assistant at Fraunhofer ISE within the Agrivoltaics group. With a background in environmental sciences and a master in renewable energy engineering and management, she specialized on soil-related topics, particularly soil compaction during the agrivoltaic installation process, crop simulations, microclimate monitoring, broader agricultural issues, and legal aspects and agrivoltaic development in France.

Erion Bousi

Mr. Erion Bousi has a M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and a M.Sc. in Renewable Energy Engineering. He is working as an R&D Engineer Agri-PV at BayWa r.e., with the main task being the techno-economic optimization of the Agri-PV products. He is in the field of Agi-PV for more than 5 years, with an expertise in light and yield simulations, system design optimization, integration of agricultural components within the Agri-PV system and technical due diligence of PV components (substructure, tracking systems, semi-transparent modules etc.). 

Lisa Pataczek

Lisa Pataczek is an agronomist at the Institute of Landscape and Plant Ecology at the University of Hohenheim in Germany. After graduating from Aarhus University with an MSc in Agrobiology and the University of Hohenheim with an MSc in Organic Agriculture and Food Systems in 2015, she worked on a BMZ-funded research project in Central and South Asia investigating ways to improve the crop rotations of smallholder farmers. She conducted her PhD research at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute, University of Hohenheim), focusing on improved mungbean cultivars and cultivation techniques to enhance their adoption potential for crop rotations in South Asia. In 2020, she joined the BMBF-funded agrivoltaic research project APV RESOLA at the University of Hohenheim. She was part of the consortium that developed the DIN specification 91434 for agrivoltaic systems in Germany, and was also part of the scientific committee of the Agrivoltaics Conference 2021. She currently coordinates data collection in one of Germany’s largest agrivoltaic pilot plants. Since 2022, she has been coordinating the SynAgri-PV research project (“Synergetic Integration of Photovoltaics in Agriculture as a Contribution to a Successful Energy Transition”) at the University of Hohenheim.

Alexis Pascaris

Alexis Pascaris is a social scientist and subject matter expert in agrivoltaics at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Her work aims to improve knowledge about the socio-political aspects of agrivoltaics by investigating issues around stakeholder adoption, community acceptance, policy effects, and implementation barriers. She engages farmers, solar developers, policy makers, Extension agents, and other key stakeholders to understand their interests and needs in agrivoltaics with the aim of facilitating cross-sector collaboration and supporting appropriate deployment. On the NREL InSPIRE team, Alexis provides thought leadership in social sciences, conducts novel analyses, develops resources to inform implementation, and coordinates national research efforts

Raphaela Ari Kießer

R. Ari Kießer is a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) practitioner with over five years of experience in sustainability assessments. They began their career as a sustainability consultant, specializing in agricultural LCA modelling and related topics such as land use change and soil organic carbon. In September 2024, they joined the Fraunhofer ISE as a research associate, where they work within the agrivoltaics department and continue to focus on LCA of agrivoltaics. Currently, they are also pursuing a dissertation focused on life cycle sustainability assessments (LCSA) for agrivoltaic systems, expanding the scope of the environmental analysis to include all pillars of sustainability.

Matthew Berwind

Matthew Berwind leads a team of PV scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems focusing on the simulation and modelling of PV power plants. His work in agrivoltaics often deals with addressing the ways in which PV and agricultural systems interact with one another, attempting to predict the performance of such dual-yield systems. The simulation-supported optimization of PV trackers and their intelligent application in agrivoltaics is another key focus of his work.

Greg Barron-Gafford

Greg Barron-Gafford’s work has largely been based in the drylands of the world. He has worked for the last 18 years in the southwestern US studying Earth System science, plant ecology, and the impacts of climate and land use change. In 2011, he began studying photovoltaic installations and pushing for ways to co-locate native plant restoration and food production alongside renewable energy from photovoltaics (agrivoltaics). In recent years, his work has extended globally thanks to multi-national partners that span physical and social sciences, engineering, and community development. Greg Barron-Gafford is author or co-author of about 80 articles in scientific journals and is excited to participate in this meeting around this great food-energy-water solution.

Pietro Elia Campana

Pietro Elia Campana is an associate professor at the Department of Sustainable Energy Systems, Future Energy Center, Mälardalen University. His main research interests are agrivoltaic systems integrated modelling and optimization, solar irradiance assessment, microclimate modeling, artificial intelligence for energy applications, and water-food-energy nexus. He has about 15 years experience integrating solar energy applications into agriculture. He led the first agrivoltaic research project in Sweden. He is associate editor for the Elsevier journal Applied Energy (IF: 11.2). He is one of the Swedish representatives in the IEA PVPS Task 13 subtask on agrivoltaic systems.

Max Trommsdorff

Max Trommsdorff is heading the Group Agrivoltaics at Fraunhofer ISE and works in the field of dual land use for agriculture and photovoltaic power generation since 2014. Since then, he worked in more than 30 agrivoltaics projects with a focus on economic feasibility, technology transfer and institutional designs. With over 50 employees of different disciplines, the Group Agrivoltaics at Fraunhofer ISE encompasses all relevant facets of agrivoltaic technology like PV technology, agricultural and environmental sciences, hydrology, geology, as well as economic and political sciences. Max chaired the AgriVoltaics World Conference 2021 and is currently leading the international expert group "Subtask Agrivoltaics" of the Task 13 Programme of the IEA and the Working Group on Scientific Accompanying Research on Agrivoltaics of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in Germany. As the founder of the AgriVoltaics conference and member of the conference's Management Board, Max is convinced that a well-working international exchange is a solid base to spread the concept of agrivoltaics.