Special Session 4

The energy from renewable sources has been continuously increasing in the worldwide scenario, but the prediction and the assessment of the performance of power plants still remains a challenge. The specifications of the components of a power plant are often stated only at nominal conditions and reliable models that allow performance at operating conditions to be estimated are rarely available. Another crucial aspect of renewable-source components is the estimation of their degradation along medium-long time intervals, thus enabling plant managers to obtain a reliable estimation of economic and energy pay-back times. A better characterization of power plants based on renewable sources requires the measurements of electrical and non-electrical quantities by means of techniques that are reproducible and that ensure metrological traceability and uncertainties that are tailored to the final goal.

The topics of this special session include, but are not limited to, the following:

• measurement of electrical and environmental quantities of power plants based on renewable sources;
• techniques for the characterization of components of power plants;
• identification of models of single components or of whole power plants based on renewable sources;
• experimental characterization of photovoltaic and wind power plants under mismatch with respect to the rated conditions;
• investigations on degradation and failure factors of power-plant components;
• reliable estimation of economic and energy pay-back times of power plants.

Alessio Carullo received his M.S. degree in Electronic Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, Italy, and the Ph.D. degree in Electronic Instrumentation from the Università di Brescia, Italy. He is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical and Electronic Measurements with the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino, Italy.
His current research interests include the development and the metrological characterization of data-acquisition systems, the characterization of components of power plants based on renewable sources and the development of devices and techniques for monitoring the vocal activity of voice professionals.

Alberto Vallan is an Associate Professor with the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications of the Politecnico di Torino, Italy. He holds the "Laurea" degree in Electronic Engineering and the PhD in Electronic Instrumentation.
From 2000 to present, he has been a lecturer at the Politecnico di Torino in courses concerning Electronic Measurements and Sensors. Currently, he is responsible for the course "Sensors and measurements for biomedical engineering" at the MSc of Biomedical Engineering.
His research interests are focused on the development and characterization of fiber optical sensors and measuring instruments for biomedical and industrial applications.

Filippo Spertino received his M. Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1995 and 2000 from Politecnico di Torino (PdT) university, Torino, Italy. He is currently an associate Professor of Electric Power Systems with reference to photovoltaic (PV) and wind power systems at Energy Department, PdT.
His research activities include design, simulation, experimental testing on photovoltaic, wind power systems and instrument calibration. He was principal investigator of some research projects regarding innovative photovoltaic applications with storage systems.