Managing Director of Research Institute

Angèle Reinders

Contact

a.h.m.e.reinders@tue.nl Gemini zuid 2.127

Department / Institute

Mechanical Engineering

EIRES

Group

Energy Technology

Group Reinders

EIRES Research

RESEARCH PROFILE

Angèle Reinders is a full professor of 'Design of Sustainable Energy Systems' at the Department of Mechanical Engineering in Eindhoven University of Technology. She aims at an optimal use and integration of sustainable energy technologies in products, buildings and local infrastructures. In this design-driven research theme improved designs of sustainable energy systems are explored and also developed by means of simulation, prototyping and testing. A strong interest exists in optimized applications of solar energy technologies in the context of buildings and mobility and affiliated energy technologies that support storage, enhanced user interactions and flexibility of sustainable energy.

My aim is to enhance design-driven research on sustainable energy products and systems to support the energy transition

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

Angèle Reinders studied experimental physics at Utrecht University, where she also received her doctoral degree in chemistry. At present her research has a design-driven scope and as such it is trans-disciplinary, with a focus on performance of energy technologies, environmental aspects, user interactions as well as prototyping and testing of innovative energy products.

Next to being a full professor at TU/e, Angèle Reinders is an Associate Professor at University of Twente and a visiting professor at the School of Photovoltaics & Renewable Energy Engineering of UNSW in Sydney. In the past she conducted research at - among others - Fraunhofer Institute of Solar Energy in Freiburg, the World Bank in Washington, D.C., ENEA in Naples, Center of Urban Energy in Toronto and in the remote areas of Papua in Indonesia. From 2010 to 2017 she was appointed as a full professor at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering in TU Delft.

She is known for her books at Wiley’s “The Power of Design” (2012) and “Photovoltaic Solar Energy From Fundamentals to Applications” (2017) and her involvement in the IEEE PVSC conference which she chaired in 2014 and 2017. In 2010 she co-founded the Journal of Photovoltaics for which she serves as an editor. In 2014 she received the PVSC Napkin Award in the USA for her contributions to the field of solar photovoltaics. Also she is involved in various tasks of the International Energy Agency PVPS program among which Task 17 on PV for Transport.

Projects which she has been leading range from design-driven research projects on solar powered mobility to applied research on solar PV systems in islands to exclusively research-oriented projects like COST Action PEARL PV, https://www.pearlpv-cost.eu/, and ERA-Net Smart Grid Plus Project CESEPS, http://ceseps.nl/.

Key Publications

See all publications

Design-driven research on photovoltaic applications

Angèle Reinders research focuses on the integration of photovoltaic (PV) solar energy technologies in mobility, buildings, infrastructures and our environment by applying a design-driven approach. In it, she combines technical research with other relevant disciplines (such as industrial design and socio-economics) to create products and systems that people actually can and like to use. Reinders strongly believes that the sustainable energy revolution can only be successful if engineers take into account human factors, societal context, financial aspects and design and styling.

At present her design-driven research has three core pillars: (1) luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) technologies, (2) performance and reliability assessments of solar systems and (3) solar powered mobility. Her applied research on innovative colored LSC devices ranges from roof tiles to advanced geometrical designs, which have both great design features (color, transparency, form) and high efficiency. The performance of these and other integrated PV modules are tested in the TU/e’s large area solar simulator.

Working together with more than 250 researchers from 37 countries across Europe, she investigates the long-term yields of PV systems in different climates and in various hybrid system contexts, using big data analytics, simulations and machine learning techniques.

Her research on PV-powered mobility focusses on solar-powered electric cars and solar charging stations. In this research she works together with Lightyear, Toyota, TNO, IM Efficiency and Forschungszentrum Jülich. More details about Reinders’ work can be found here. Or check out her recent book Designing with Photovoltaics (2020).