News Article
NREL Scientists Lauded as Renewable Energy Pioneers
Three scientists were recently honored at the World Renewable Energy Congress/Network (WREN) in Abu Dhabi, for their work in solar energy.
At the recent World Renewable Energy Congress/Network (WREN) in Abu Dhabi, three researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) were named WREN Pioneers.
Falah Hasoon, Chuck Kutscher and David Renné were recognized for the impact their discoveries and innovations have made to the progress and acceptance of renewable energy technologies.
Falah Hasoon is a senior scientist at NREL and a research professor at Colorado School of Mines. For more than 25 years, Hasoon has actively researched material growth and characterization of photovoltaic materials and device processing. He has a master’s degree in physics from the University of Bath and his doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Salford. He is an author and co-author of more than 120 scientific research publications and is a co-inventor of four U.S. patents.
Hasoon’s knowledge covers a wide range of material growth techniques such as the vertical Bridgeman method, the iodine vapor transport technique, the solution growth method, Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD), and closed space sublimation. His interests include design and fabrication of growth and characterization research tools. His current primary research interest is the growth and characterization of Cadmium telluride thin-film based photovoltaic materials and devices.
Chuck Kutscher is a principal engineer and manager of the Thermal Systems Group at NREL where he currently leads research on parabolic trough solar collector systems and the development of a design handbook on solar industrial process heat systems. He is a past chair of the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) and was a general chair of the SOLAR 2006 national solar energy conference, which led to the ASES report, Tackling Climate Change in the U.S. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he developed and taught the course “Climate Change Solutions.” He also writes a monthly column addressing climate change for SOLAR TODAY magazine. He has given many presentations around the U.S. on renewable energy and climate change and was the keynote speaker for the first “Colorado’s New Energy Economy” Conference in October 2007, and received the 2008 Governor’s Excellence in Renewable Energy Individual Award.
David Renné has been at NREL since 1991 developing and managing programs on renewable energy resource assessment and analysis, and the integration of resource data into geographic information systems (GIS). His expertise is in solar resource assessments and he is currently the operating agent of an International Energy Agency Solar Heating and Cooling Program Task titled “Solar Resource Knowledge Management.”
He also manages DOE’s Solar Resource Assessment activities funded under the Solar Energy Technology Program. Much of his recent work at NREL has been for international organizations such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the United Nations Environment Program. Renné is currently the president of the International Solar Energy Society (ISES).
Before coming to NREL, he was a senior program manager at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he was heavily involved in both domestic and international wind studies, such as the U. S. Candidate Site Wind Measurement Program, and a wind resource assessment study for Egypt. Renné received his master’s and doctorate at Colorado State University in Atmospheric Sciences and Earth Resources.
Established in 1992, WREN supports the utilization and implementation of renewable energy sources that are both environmentally safe and economically sustainable through a worldwide network of agencies, laboratories, companies and individuals—all working together towards the international diffusion of renewable energy technologies and applications.
NREL is DOE’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development.
