Professor Andrew Blakers
Contacts
Andrew Blakers is Professor of Engineering at the Australian National University. He was a Humboldt Fellow and has held Australian Research Council QEII and Senior Research Fellowships. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering, the Institute of Energy and the Institute of Physics. He is a Public Policy Fellow at ANU. He has published approximately 300 papers and patents. His research interests are in the areas of silicon photovoltaic solar cells and solar energy systems. He has extensive experience with basic and applied research and was a leader of the team that developed PERC silicon solar cell technology, which currently has approximately 30% of the worldwide solar market and cumulative module sales of around $30 billion (mid-2018). He also has interest in sustainable energy policy and is engaged in detailed analysis of energy systems with high (50-100%) penetration by wind and photovoltaics with support from pumped hydro energy storage (for which he won the 2018 Eureka Prize for Environmental Research).
Please visit the Solar Energy Research website for more information in his research.
Research interests
Solar energy, semiconductors, photovoltaics, silicon solar cells, urban concentrators, Energy policy & economics. Pumped hydro energy storage.
Research Outline
My primary interest is advanced silicon solar cells - increasing efficiency and reducing cost. Silicon photovoltaic technology constitutes above 90% of the worldwide solar market. I am also interested in sustainable energy policyincluding detailed analysis of energy systems with high (50-100%) penetration by wind and photovoltaics with support from pumped hydro energy storage.
Our research group is large, externally funded, experimentally-intensive, commercially-responsive, interdisciplinary, outreach-active, policy-engaged, physics/materials-based.
Groups
- Leader, Solar photovoltaics
- Researcher, Energy storage and recovery
- Researcher, Sustainable transport
Projects
- ANU Research Team contributor, Renewable Energy Systems program