The 11^th Slovene Photovoltaic Conference took place on Wednesday, 18^th June, at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (University of Ljubljana). The event, which the Laboratory for Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (Department of Electronics) has organised for over a decade, once again brought together researchers, industry representatives, legislators, and other stakeholders in the field of solar energy. More information about past and future events can be found on their website http://slo-pv.fe.uni-lj.si/.

This year's event was attended by over 100 interested visitors from various interest groups in the field of solar energy production (manufacturers, legislators, installers, electricity grid operators, etc.), who listened to 17 speakers. The lectures took place in the faculty's large lecture hall and were opened by Dean Prof. Dr. Marko Topič. The introductory speech was followed by Dr. Uroš Merc, founder of Bisol, a Slovenian manufacturer of solar modules. He emphasised that Slovenia is the only European country that exports more solar modules than it imports. The program continued in three sections:

• Photovoltaics and Slovenia's sustainability goals,
• Energy communities, and
• Economic, technical, and safety aspects of solar power plants.

The last section also featured a presentation by Nik Rus, a researcher at the Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute (ZAG), from the Fire Research and Innovation Section (Department for Fire-Safe Sustainable Built Environment (FRISSBE). In his presentation titled ‘Experimental approaches to improving the fire safety of rooftop solar power plants’, he highlighted the increase in fires related to solar power plants and presented the latest statistical data on solar power plant fires in Slovenia and Italy. In the central part of the presentation, he outlined the experimental approaches ZAG is using to understand the risks associated with the fire safety of solar power plants and the potential solutions being investigated.

There is also a video of the presentation, although the whole event was held in Slovenian.

The conference was accompanied by an exhibition where various stakeholders and sponsors from the fields of solar energy production, management, and quality assurance presented themselves. Visitors were able to view equipment, mechanical and IT solutions, and innovations that support the further development of photovoltaics in Slovenia.