ASU creates Solar Power Laboratory to boost Arizona’s renewable energy industry, improve state’s environment
Experts from one of the nation’s leading solar energy research programs, Christiana Honsberg and Stuart Bowden, are hired by the university to join industry innovator George Maracas in the quest to make solar systems more efficient and economical
Arizona State University is strengthening its commitment to boost Arizona’s economic development prospects in the renewable energy industry by establishing the Solar Power Laboratory to advance solar energy research, education and technology.
Prominent scientists and engineers are being hired to lead the endeavor to improve the efficiency of solar electric power systems while making them more economically feasible.
“The Solar Power Laboratory will further build up the university’s already formidable solar energy research and develop collaborations with the energy industry to accelerate expansion of the state’s economy,” said ASU President Michael Crow.
The effort is a major part of ASU’s response to the Arizona Board of Regents’ Solar Energy Initiative, aimed at encouraging research and development to meet future needs for renewable energy sources, Crow said.
In addition to spurring economic opportunity, advances in solar power systems will help Arizona protect its environment by enabling more widespread use of this clean-energy source, Crow said.
The laboratory will be a collaboration partnering the university’s Global Institute of Sustainability and Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering.
Christiana Honsberg, Stuart Bowden and George Maracas have been hired for the venture. Honsberg will be chief scientist, Bowden will be industrial liaison, and Maracas will be chief operating officer.
Honsberg and Bowden are coming to ASU from the University of Delaware, where they worked in the most extensive university solar research program in the United States.
Maracas has made his mark with more than 25 years of accomplishments in engineering research, research management and technology commercialization.
“Our goal is for ASU to have the pre-eminent academic solar energy research, development and training program in the United States, and one of the top such programs in the world” said Jonathan Fink, director of the Global Institute of Sustainability. “The establishment of the Solar Power Laboratory and the hiring of Honsberg, Bowden and Maracas combined with our ongoing research efforts help us meet this objective.”
The lab’s goal in large part will be to support a significant facet of the economic development objectives of Arizona and the Southwest, Fink said, noting that expansion of the solar energy industry has been identified as an economic priority by Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, the state Department of Commerce, the Greater Phoenix Economic Council and Science Foundation Arizona.
“ASU and the state of Arizona have a number of exciting economic development and research opportunities associated with renewable energy,” he said. “These three new faculty members will play key roles in making sure that these efforts are successful.”
Honsberg is considered a pioneer in photovoltaics – the solar cells that convert sunlight into energy. She helped establish the Center for Photovoltaic Engineering at the University of Delaware, which developed the first undergraduate degree in photovoltaic engineering.
Delaware’s photovoltaics center also won the largest solar energy research grant in the country – $50 million from the U.S. Department of Defense.
Bowden has been working at the University of Delaware’s Institute of Ene |