For the second year in a row, the QESST team at UNM talked up photovoltaics to the entire 6th grade class at South Valley Academy on October 22, 2014. South Valley is a Title 1 school that serves a heavily Hispanic community. Most students from South Valley will be the first in their families to…

On Sept. 20, 2014, QESST participated in the annual MESA Regional Workshop at Arizona State University’s Chandler Innovation Center. Forty teachers gathered from both the Central and Southern Regions of Arizona for a MESA Advisors Retreat. QESST’s Joe Carpenter and Tiffany Rowlands paired up and presented a lesson on maximizing the power of a solar…

This article first appeared on UNSW Australia News – December 8, 2014   UNSW’s solar researchers have converted over 40% of the sunlight hitting a solar system into electricity, the highest efficiency ever reported. The world-beating efficiency was achieved in outdoor tests in Sydney, before being independently confirmed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)…

Jen Fuller, a QESST ERC and CSPO (Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes) scholar has been awarded a Graduate Education Completion Fellowship for Spring 2015 in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change (SHESC) at Arizona State University (ASU). Completion Fellowships are awarded to support a student’s degree completion of a PhD, and are…

This article first appeared on MIT News – January 13, 2015 David L. Chandler | MIT News Office   Mechanical engineering professor pursues a vision of a cleaner, more energy-efficient world. One day in the 1990s, as he was riding home from high school in São Paulo, Tonio Buonassisi looked out the bus window at…

This article first appeared on AZ Central – January 14, 2015 Ryan Randazzo |, The Republicazcentral.com In a research facility off the Loop 101 in Tempe, about 30 researchers in clean rooms wearing protective suits, gloves and hair nets test some of the most efficient semiconductor materials on the planet for solar panels and LEDs….

Posted: October 20, 2014 This article first appeared on ASU News. Even technologies promoted for good environmental reasons can sometimes have unforeseen negative consequences. Such was the case in 1979 when the United States began adding methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) to gasoline to improve combustion and reduce harmful emissions. Water soluble, MTBE ended up seeping…

At the 40th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC) in Denver, QESST Scholar Jaewon Oh won the Best Student Paper Award for Topical Area 12 on Reliability of PV. Jaewon’s paper on potentially induced degradation (PID) measured the efficacy of system-level PID mitigation based on applying reverse voltage during nighttime to offset daytime module damage. Results…

SAVE the DATES May 6-8, 2014 QESST Year 3 NSF/DOE Site Visit Review and Renewal Discussion Download the 2014 site visit agenda presentations (password required) Here are the details: Arrival of out of town guests:   Sunday, May 4 Preparation day:  Monday, May 5 Site visit presentations:  Tuesday and Wednesday, May 6–7 QESST response to site visit…

QESST will attend the NSF co-sponsored STEM Careers Fair in September 2013, in conjunction with the office of U.S. House Representative Frank Wolf. The Careers Fair will showcase exciting science and innovation with the goal of encouraging young people, especially in grades 7-12, to pursue careers in science and engineering. The Careers Fair will feature…

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in partnership with the College of Technology and Innovation at Arizona State University, is implementing the Vocational Training and Education for Clean Energy (VOCTEC) Program to help improve the sustainability of renewable energy investments and infrastructure in the Pacific region by increasing local awareness, knowledge and capacity…

As part of a global cause to bolster solar power technologies, Arizona State University researchers are taking part in three new solar energy projects funded by the Australian and U.S. governments. The investment for these projects includes $68 million for two, eight-year research programs and $15.5 million for 11 collaborative projects. This collaboration is part…