Date/Time
Date(s) - Wed 21 June
18:00
Location
CQ Cafe, CQ Hotels, 213-223 Cuba Street
Enabling the solar revolution
As we approach the shortest day of the year, we can nevertheless reflect on the power of the sun; this year will see us capture more of our energy needs from sunlight than ever before. The phenomenal growth in global photovoltaic capacity has taken even the most optimistic observers by surprise, yet its consistent doubling every two years is a hallmark of how technologies scale. The impact we are beginning to see today is built on silicon photovoltaic technology that is over twenty years old. Since then, scientists have been searching for fundamentally cheaper semiconductor materials that will enable the next transformative step in large-scale solar power generation. In this talk, you will hear about how the economics of solar photovoltaics are fuelling a quiet clean energy revolution, which is set to continue with the development of new printable solar photovoltaics.
Associate Professor Justin Hodgkiss, MacDiarmid Institute, Victoria University
Justin Hodgkiss is an Associate Professor of chemistry at Victoria University of Wellington, and a deputy director of the MacDiarmid Institute. His research group uses lasers with extremely short pulses to understand how printable solar photovoltaic materials create electricity, and how we can create better materials for solar energy conversion. He collaborates with leading groups around the world, notably with a group in Bordeaux, for which he recently received support from a Dumont d’Urville grant.