Department of Energy Technology Engineering

Petros Axaopoulos is professor at the Technological Educational Institute of Athens and Director of the Renewable Energy Laboratory. He teaches Renewable Energy Sources to students. He has a bachelor in Physics and he made successful postgraduate studies on energy saving at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL), as European Council scholar, and he received his PhD in 1985.

Dr Petros Axaopoulos has worked as a researcher in the area of solar energy technologies at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (Ispra – Italy) for 4 years. Dr Petros Axaopoulos has undertaken, since 1985, several European projects in research and technology development, including solar thermal systems, solar cooling, photovoltaics, wind energy and biogas production. He has involved in applications of renewable energy technology in agriculture, as greenhouse heating by solar assisted heat pump, solar milk cooling unit for remote rural areas, biogas production from swine manure and development of a photovoltaic system for ice production.

He has also been the Coordinator of European Tempus projects concerning the development of master courses in Energy saving (2004) and renewable energy technologies (2006) in conjunction with an extensive network of Universities from Central Asia and Europe.

He has published many papers in refereed scientific journal and proceedings of International and National congresses on topics in the field of renewable energy technologies and is the editor of five proceedings of International conferences on energy field. He has written the material for a distance learning module on Solar Thermal Systems for a full time MSc course run at Loughborough University in U.K (2000). He is member of International Association of Specialist in Energy (IASEN), and he is also member of committee of experts regarding the specifications of construction and operation of solar systems. He was a member of Jury of International festival of films on energy (Lausanne 1990).

His main fields of research activities are: Simulation and experimental performances of solar thermal and photovoltaic systems, Solar assisted heat pump, solar cooling without batteries, energy software programs for engineering education, solar and wind energy measurements, energy efficient agricultural building design and energy economics.

List of selected publications:

Axaopoulos P., M. Theodoridis (2009) "Design and experimental performance of a PV ice-maker without battery". Solar Energy, Vol. 83, pp. 1360-1369.
Axaopoulos P., G. Pitsilis (2007). "Energy software programs for educational use". Renewable Energy, Vol. 32, pp. 1045-1058.
Axaopoulos P., P. Panagakis, A. Tsavdaris, and D. Georgakakis (2001). "Simulation and experimental performance of a solar heated anaerobic digester". Solar Energy, 7(2): 155-164.
Axaopoulos P., G. Pitsilis, P. Panagakis (2002). "Multimedia education program for an active solar hot water system". International journal of solar Energy, Vol. 22(2), pp. 83-92.
Axaopoulos P., P. Panagakis, S. Kyritsis (1998). "Experimental comparison of a solar assisted heat pump vs. a conventional thermosyphon solar system". International Journal of Energy Research, Vol. 22, 1107-1120.
Axaopoulos P., P. Panagakis (2003). "Energy and economic analysis of biogas heated livestock buildings". Biomass and bioenergy, 24, pp. 239-248.
Axaopoulos P. and M. P. Theodoridis (2008). "Design and Performance of a multiple Compressor Solar Ice-maker". Proceedings of the 4th IASME/WSEAS International Conference on Energy, Environment, Ecosystems and Sustainable Development (EEESD'08), Algarve, Portugal, June 11-13, pp. 96-100.
Axaopoulos P. and V. Mavris (2004). "Performance evaluation of a photovoltaic system". Proceedings of the International conference on "Energy saving technologies and environment". University of Irkutsk (Russia), 29 – 31 March, pp. 327- 332
Axaopoulos P., P. Panagakis, G. Pitsilis, S. Kyritsis (1994). "AGRISIM: A P.C. user friendly transient simulation program for growing-finishing swine buildings". Applied Engineering in Agriculture. Vol. 10(5):735-738.
Axaopoulos P., P. Panagakis, S. Kyritsis (1992). "Computer simulation assessment of the thermal microenvironment of growing pigs under summer conditions". Transactions of the ASAE 35(3):1005 - 1009.
Axaopoulos P., S. Kyritsis, G. Kapetanaki (1998). "A dynamic energy city planning methodology". REBUILD - 2nd European Conference. The European cities of tomorrow. Florence, Italy, 1-3 April.
Axaopoulos P., P. Panagakis, S. Kyritsis (2004). "Solar assisted heat pump: A renewable energy technology" Proceedings of the International conference on "Conventional and renewable energy technologies". University of Pavlodar, 26 – 27 July, pp. 46- 60
Axaopoulos P., G. Pitsilis (2004). "Energy software programs for educational use" Proceedings of the International conference on "Energy education: Perspective and possibilities". Kyrgyz-Uzbek State University, 8 – 9 October, pp. 5- 13
Axaopoulos P. (2004). "Implementation of energy management system in School building" Proceedings of the International conference on "Energy considerations in Central Asia and Europe". Tashkent State Technical University, 5 – 6 November, pp. 57- 65