What is Solar Energy?
Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, Portland State University. pdx.edu/maseeh.
What do we mean when we talk about “solar energy”?
Ilke Celik, Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Director of Sustainable Energy Systems Lab: Solar energy is a technology that uses the world’s most abundant and renewable resource to produce different forms of energy.
Why does solar energy matter?
Raul Bayoan Cal, Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Director of Wind Energy and Turbulence Lab: Yeah, solar energy is a great avenue for clean energy. It’s a clear resource that we can tap into, and certainly it’s just a question of beginning to place these solar modules on the group and start extracting energy.
How is your lab working to build the future of solar energy?
Ilke Celik: Without viable pathways, there’s a real risk that discarded modules will end up illegally dumped. Our research addresses that issue, developing technologies and approaches that provide fully re-manufacturable technology: recycling and operating all components and then creating secondary solar technology that’s fully based on recycled content.
Raul Bayoan Cal: So, in our lab we’re asking questions about efficiency. So in this case we know that these solar modules are built in room conditions, but once you take them outside, they begin to heat up. The problem is that once they begin to heat up, they become less efficient. The question that we’re asking in our lab is, how is it that we can propose different strategies so that the wind that is passing by begins to shed that heat away, and then they become cooler.
Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, Portland State University
Thank you for watching! Learn more at pdx.edu/maseeh/power-energy