Boosting Renewable Energy

A week long workshop, from 17 to 21 October 2011, organised jointly by ICTP and the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), looked at new materials and fundamental processes that will give a boost to the renewable energy sector. Topics covered at the workshop, by experts in the fields, include photovoltaics, artificial photosynthesis, fuel cells, electrocatalysis and batteries.

"While the need to shift toward sustainable energy sources is clear, high costs of existing renewable energy sources and low conversion efficiencies have proved to be stumbling blocks," says Ralph Gebauer, ICTP scientist and one of the workshop organizers. In order to replace traditional energy sources based on fossil fuels or nuclear energy, it has become crucial to develop new materials with improved energy production, storage, conversion and use.

The search and development of a new generation of materials such as fuel cells, solar panels with organic semiconductors, and materials that can be used in artifical photosynthesis requires collaboration between different disciplines and between experimentalists and theorists. "We need to understand different aspects of these materials, their structure (up to the nanoscale), their energetics, and how they can be improved in terms of energy conversion efficiency. This makes the field very appealing from a fundamental scientific point of view," explains Gebauer.

Another very important goal of the workshop was to reach out to scientists from developing countries. "Many developing countries lie in areas with strong solar radiation, strong winds, or both, and so renewable energy technology can prove to be a very good energy option," says Gebauer.

The workshop also included a poster presentation session, with over 50 participants presenting their research on new materials and renewable energy. The complete recordings of the workshop are available on the ICTP.tv Website.