Everything Under the Sun

About the Presentation

Climate change, sustainability, and rising fuel costs are all factors that have contributed to the increase in renewable energy usage worldwide. In particular, solar energy has seen rapid growth, primarily due to the falling cost of photovoltaics. Despite photovoltaics dominating the market recently, interest in generating electricity from solar thermal energy is still strong for the ease of storing heat, which can be dispatched later. Because of these reasons, there is a compelling argument for hybridizing the two systems for low cost and dispatchability. In this talk, I will cover some of our recent work on hybridizing solar thermal with photovoltaics (some more successful than others), and the challenges facing next generation solar thermal. Additionally, I will discuss how the lessons learned in these projects could be applied to solar driven desalination. Underpinning all of this work is a fundamental interest in heat transfer and its application to variety of systems and industries.