Forty countries represented at largest IEEE PV specialists conference

HONOLULU, FINLAND: The Organizing Committee of the 35th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, the longest running global gathering of PV scientists and engineers, has reported a record attendance at this year’s conference.

Over 1,380 attendees traveled to Honolulu from 40 countries across the globe, including the Netherlands, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, South Korea and Australia. In addition, the conference hosted a bustling exhibition hall with 40 booths that was also home to an impressive display of over 500 top-tier poster presentations.

A record 930 technical presentations took place at the Hawaii Convention Center, representing an increase of over 40% from the 2009 conference. Participating industry and government notables included Hawaii Lt. Governor James “Duke” Aiona, SEIA’s Rhone Resch, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Jae Edmonds, Peter Cousins of Sunpower, DOE’s John Lushetsky and Hawaii State Representative Hermina Morita. Numerous international universities and labs were represented in addition to representatives from IBM, CH2M Hill and many more.

“We were pleased to see the world’s leading PV scientists and engineers meeting at our international conference to further accelerate solar technology as a cross-boarder solution to our energy needs,” said Robert Walters, Conference Chair for the 35th IEEE PV Specialists Conference. “The enthusiasm for solar in the Hawaiian Islands made it the perfect forum for scholarly collaboration and discussion around PV.”

Dr. Richard King, principal scientist at Spectrolab Inc., joined the list of prestigious career solar scientists honored with the Cherry Award since 1980 at this year’s conference. Dr. King’s 25 years of photovoltaic research with high-efficiency solar cells has helped pave the way for today’s concentrator photovoltaic industry. Cherry Award nominations deadline for the 37th IEEE PVSC is December 15, 2010.

The upcoming 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC-5), held September 6-10, 2010 in Valencia, Spain, will be home to the 36th IEEE PV Specialists Conference as well as the 25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition and the 20th Asia/Pacific PV Science and Engineering Conference.

The IEEE PV Specialists Conference celebrates its 50th anniversary next year when it travels to lively Seattle, Washington. The 37th IEEE PV Specialists Conference will be held from June 19-24, 2011 at the Washington State Convention Center. Abstract submission will open in late 2010 with a deadline of February 28, 2011.