Expert predicts bright future for solar power

Yoshihiro Hamakawa (right), adviser professor to the chancellor at Ritsumeikan University in Shiga, Japan, accepts the 2005 Karl Böer Solar Energy Medal of Merit from Karl Böer (center), Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Physics and Solar Energy at UD and founder of UD’s Institute of Energy Conversion, and Robert Birkmire (left), director of UD’s Institute of Energy Conversion.

3:15 p.m., April 29, 2005--Solar power holds the best promise for a clean, reliable energy source in the 21st Century, Yoshihiro Hamakawa, adviser professor to the chancellor at Ritsumeikan University in Shiga, Japan, said at UD on Thursday, April 28.

Hamakawa gave the lecture after he received the 2005 Karl Böer Solar Energy Medal of Merit. The award is given in honor of Karl Wolfgang Böer, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Physics and Solar Energy at UD and founder of UD’s Institute of Energy Conversion.

“Photovoltaics have a bright future because they are the best guarantee of economic feasibility among renewable energy technology,” he said. “You don’t need fossil-fuel electric power generation, which means no contamination all over the world. Keeping electricity generation clean will be realized by photovoltaics. Solar power from the sun is quite homogenous, from the top of mountains to the center of sea, it’s the same amount of photo energy, [and] you can use it free of charge.”

The recipient of the Böer award is chosen by a panel of commissioners composed of scientists and presidents of several solar energy-related professional societies, a representative of the U.S. secretary of energy and a member of the Böer family.

The bronze medal and a cash award of $40,000, funded by the Karl W. Böer Solar Energy Medal of Merit Trust, is given to an individual who has made significant pioneering contributions to the promotion of solar energy as an alternate source of energy through research, development or economic enterprise or to an individual who has made extraordinarily valuable and enduring contributions to the field of solar energy in other ways.

“I am very happy to be here and very honored to deliver the memorial award lecture,” Hamakawa said.

Using graphs and charts to illustrate his points, Hamakawa traced milestones in energy use, including the first coal-powered steam engines in 1765, the invention of the internal combustion engine in 1860, the invention of the electric light bulb in 1877, the first aircraft in 1903 and the first use of solar cells on space satellites in 1965.

Hamakawa said that the growth in the world population to more than 6 billion persons puts the environment at risk unless cleaner alternative energy sources are developed.

“This positive increment in energy demand seems unavoidable in the near future, even if energy-saving technology in progress is applied to a moderate degree,” Hamakawa said. “For example, the rate of consumption per production unit in the heavy industries in well-developed countries might decrease, [but] it will be completely [offset] by the rapid increase of energy demand in the newly advancing countries, such as China, Malaysia and Thailand.”

Hamakawa said the homogenous nature of solar power and its accessibility makes it the best form of energy to harness and develop to be economically viable. For instance, he said, with projected annual solar electricity production in Japan rising to more than 500 megawatts in 2030 from 20 megawatts in 2000, the cost of producing a kilowatt-hour of electricity is expected to drop to 7 Japanese Yen (about 6 U.S. cents), from about 500 Yen in 2000.

“An economically feasible age of photovoltaics will come earlier than expected,” Hamakawa said. “In any case, the most important emphasis should be placed on stopping the effects of contamination by fossil-fuel burning with a worldwide energy policy and development of this novel, clean-energy technology for the future benefit of all mankind.”

A prominent scholar in the field of solar photovoltaic energy conversion, Hamakawa explored new materials, device physics and fabrication technologies that led to improving the efficiency of many types of solar cells. In the late 1970s, he was a leader in demonstrating valance electron control using an amorphous silicon p-i-n heteroface device structure and developed a new wide bandgap material, amorphous silicon carbide, which is now used by many industries worldwide for manufacture of solar panels.

In 1973, Hamakawa was one of the initiators of the Sunshine Project, a national consortium of public institutions, private enterprises and universities that was sponsored by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in Japan. He is the chairman of the committee for the new Sunshine Project, solar energy division.

The first Karl W. Böer Solar Energy Medal of Merit award was presented in 1993 to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who was cited as an individual who spurred development and focused world attention on solar energy.

Article by Martin Mbugua
Photo by Greg Drew

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