People

Who We Are

Energy is a mainstay of an industrial society. As the population of the world increases and people strive for a higher standard of living, the amount of energy necessary to sustain our society is ever increasing. At the same time, the availability of nonrenewable sources, particularly liquid fuels, is rapidly shrinking. Therefore, there is general agreement that to avoid an energy crises, the amount of energy needed to sustain society will have to be contained, and, to the extent possible, renewable sources will have to be used. As a consequence, conservation and renewable energy technologies are going to increase in importance, and reliable, up-to-date information about their availability, efficiency, and cost is necessary for planning a secure energy future.

CERC pursues research and development of environmentally clean energy systems, such as photovoltaics (PV), concentrating solar power (CSP), energy storage (thermal storage, batteries, supercapacitors), photocatalytic detoxification/disinfection technologies, hydrogen production and solid state storage, new efficient thermodynamic cycles, solar energy conversion/rectifying antenna (rectenna), and biomass conversion/biofuels.