 4 o'clock Rock on Wednesday, you know what that means, Hawaii, the state of clean energy under the auspices of the Hawaii energy policy forum and Sharon Moriwaki who was there somewhere in the gallery. How did he miss? The gallery. And my co-host for this inimitable show is Mike Hamnet, raise your hand, that's Mike. And our principal guest is Niko Gayard who is with HNEI, he's an expert at HNEI. Yep, thanks for having me. And our guest for the moment is Carolyn Carl and she is with Hawaii Energy and she's going to tell us about a certain program that took place last Friday and how it relates to the work of Hawaii Energy. Hi Carolyn. Hi, how are you? Good. Good. So, last Friday was the Honorary Award for the PBMs 40 under 40, so I had the pleasure of being there with a bunch of our teammates and I think it was a fantastic event and one of the things I was most excited about was what a great representation the energy industry had. So, in addition to Hawaii Energy, me having the honor of being there, we also had Veronica Rocha from the State Energy Office as well as Jenna Long from Pacific BioFuel, so it was really awesome. Well represented. It was really awesome. What it means, Carolyn, is that the energy industry is turning into a real industry that people are growing old together and they know each other and they're nurturing. Yeah, no, I think what we're seeing and what I'm so proud to be a part of such an amazing collaboration network of folks is that there are projects that are reaching far beyond just the energy sector. You know, we're involved in new technologies being installed in a variety of areas in hospitality and government, so it's just penetrating and the clean energy future is really, really bright. Yeah, and you've got to have people to do that and to manage it. And that means there are careers in energy, right? That's the celebration. Absolutely, absolutely, and in so many different areas of energy, whether you're a service provider, whether you work for programs, administration, policy, you know, there's opportunity in technology education, so research, so, I mean, it's super exciting, especially here in Hawaii, you know, the clean tech. Yeah. And it's interesting that Hawaii Energy always does high leverage things. It's just something you know is going to have a bigger fact cast a long shadow. And this does too. Getting together on a 40 by 40 program with PBN means that you are encouraging people to get into the industry and thus build the industry. That's what you're doing. Absolutely, and I think that's, you know, what I look to my mentors and the folks who brought me in as the role models, but at the same time, you know, try to provide that sort of excitement to those coming recent graduate, those still in school, you know, trying to just talk about the plethora of things that you can get involved in no matter what your affinity is. Is it more technical? Is it more social, you know, government, all that stuff? Great initiative. Great partnership. Absolutely. Now there's a rumor. What's that? That you have a film you want to play. Oh, well, I think, well, we always come with films. Okay, so is that like a good rumor to me? I think so, yeah. Hardly a rumor. All facts. So, yeah, no, we have a clip from the event on Friday, just highlighting some of the honorees and all the great work they do. Okay, let's play that and see what we can do. This is services, next step. Shall we wait for you? What's the future look with this group? It looks so promising. You know, right now with everything that's going on in this world, to see the people who I'm surrounded with, I'm optimistic about the future. Not just for Hawaii, but also for the world. Now, please congratulate the general director of the entire easel. Well, it's exciting, yeah. It's a big honor to be excited about the future. I think there's so many ups and downs, but it's really amazing when you look back from where we started to where we are now. Next piece, congratulations. Caroline Carl, deputy director of Hawaii Energy. Nice, Caroline. Very nice little movie. You guys always bring a movie around. We'd love to see your movies. Thank you, Marvin. Yes. Marvin makes the movies. Marvin does make the movies. It's only the best. So what's your take on this? I mean, this was successful, clearly. And what does it mean going forward for you? Will you do it again? Well, I think I'll promote as many people as possible to strive to bring the clean energy discussion to the forefront and to promote the great work that so many different organizations are doing. So absolutely, it's never ending. We just have to think of new opportunities to highlight success and raise the bar where we're going. So who among the 40, can you tell us at least a couple of names where Hawaii clean energy people? Sure. So as I mentioned, Jen along from Pacific Biodiesel. Veronica Rocha from the Hawaii State Energy Office last year. Melissa Mayashiro from Blue Planet was also honored. And then previous years, Jill Sims from the Elemental Accelerator. So there's been some great folks that have been involved. And I think in addition, a lot of the businesses that are working to become more energy efficient and embrace clean energy, you know, hospitality industry. And you'll be looking around. Yeah. You'll be checking them out for next year. Absolutely. So that means, what do you say? Can my cabinet and me, can we apply on the 40 by 40 program? You know, 40 under 40, perhaps not, but you can definitely nominate someone. So I would highly recommend taking a look at, you know, and getting the word out about some great work that folks are doing on their own or with their organization. So she thinks we're older than 40. I don't know how she came to that conclusion, but I'd say it was a very diplomatic, politically correct answer. I carded you out the door. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. We're going to take a break now. I'll be right back. My victory was getting help to put our lives back together. DAV provides veterans with a lifetime of support. My victory is being there for my family. Help us support more victories for veterans. Go to DAV.org. I'm the guy you want to be. I'm the guy, say good morning. I'm the guy with the H2O, and I'm the guy that says, let's go. Aloha, my name is Raya Salter, and I'm the host of Power Up Hawaii, which you can see live from 1 to 130 every Tuesday at thinktechhawaii.com and then later on YouTube. I am an energy attorney, clean energy advocate and community outreach specialist, and on Power Up Hawaii we come together to talk about how can Hawaii walk towards a clean, renewable and just energy future. To do that, we talk to stakeholders all over the spectrum, from clean energy technology folks to community groups, to politicians, to regulators, to the utility. So please join us Tuesdays at 1 o'clock for Power Up Hawaii. Bingo, we're back. Now you may think this is Carolyn and Carolyn Carl, but it is not. It is Sharon Moriwaki, and she is another co-host. We can never have too many co-hosts here. Who told you that? I wanted to be here with Nico. We asked number Nico today. You're in trouble, Nico. So let's get down to the bedrock here. What do you do with HNEI? So I do research on material science. So I have a research group who's focusing on thin-filmed materials. So we're looking at the next generation of photovoltaic material, which eventually in, you know, 15, 20 years from now is the silicon technology that we have here in Hawaii that we see on the rooftop. And is it going to be cheaper? The goal is to get it cheaper, yes. Cheaper with the same sort of efficiency. If you look at the thin-film technology, what we could do with that technology is also enhance the efficiency of the existing silicon, like by stacking on them. Is it thinner? It's going to be thinner. It's so thin it's actually flexible. It's a hundredth of a hair. It's extremely thin. That's a great property of these materials. And you can stack them. And we can stack them. So not only we can stack them on top of each other, but we can change their color. So they act as optical filters. So we can have material that can absorb like UV light on top of material that can absorb visible light on top of material that can absorb infrared. And so by doing so, you improve the photon collection and you enhance the overall efficiency of the device. So what does the stacking do? What is that versus non-stacking? So the standard technology, which is silicon, is a plain thick wafer because silicon is not a very good solar absorber. You need about a millimeter or half a millimeter of material to absorb light. And also you cannot change the color of silicon. So you cannot stack silicon on top of each other. So the efficiency is really set to a theoretical value, which is actually what people get with silicon. So as far as silicon goes, you're stuck with it. It is efficient, but you cannot really improve the efficiency beyond what's been done so far. So what the industry is trying to do is to find some tricks to make it cheaper, sometimes a little bit thinner, or instead of having the grid, the metal grid that you see sometimes on the front of the panel, try to move it on the back such that you can have more photon and more light reaching the cell. So the metal is concerned we've reached the limit of silicon. And so what we're looking at in my lab are alloys that contain different chemical elements, two, three, four chemical elements, and by changing their relative concentration or sometimes their thickness or some aspect of the composition, we can change the color essentially. And so we can have for same given material we can change the color through all these that you mentioned before and we can really stack them on top of each other. That's really the key if you want to break the buyer of silicon. Can you put on windows, is that the idea? So the way we deposit these materials is usually on the piece of glass but you could coat that on a piece of metal for integrated PV, you could have that on a window. You can pretty much coat that on any single substrate that you want. So is the color more efficient or selective? It's a very good question. So based on the color you can have more current or more voltage. It's always a trade-off between the two. So our cell gives you current and voltage. And so by changing the color you can have a color that gives you a lot of current but a very little voltage and you have other color that gives you a lot of voltage but you're current. And so by stacking this layer on top of each other you can really take the best advantage of both and limit the loss. What's the basic science involved here? It's a semiconductor physics so there's the same physics that you have in all the chips that you have in your computers or your smartphone or the memories that you have in a USB stick so it's all about semiconductor science how you can make sure that the metal can absorb light can conduct electricity doesn't have too much defects Minimize the heat Minimize heat You have to stack the layers on top of each other you have to make sure that the processes are compatible with each other because if you destroy the cell that's underneath as you grow the device you kind of lose the efficiency. So the whole idea is really to find new technologies find new materials and again really to replace the technologies in the next 15 to 20 years. What's about degradation? Does it degrade over time? It really depends on the technology. Silicon is very stable you can see modules that have been out for the past 20 years some more advanced technologies are extremely efficient but degrade extremely quickly they are actually moisture sensitive the technology I'm looking at are very stable you can actually buy today modules that are made with this type of materials but what we try to do is to switch from the way they're made which use a lot of electricity a lot of what we call vacuum technologies what we try to do in my lab is to replace these vacuum technologies with printing techniques so they are used to print the source cell exactly What about maintenance do you have to clean it in a special way in order to keep it vital? As far as my technology is concerned it really depends how you integrate the cell most of these cells have a sheet of glass sitting on top so as all other PV technologies they may have to be cleaned ever again depending on where you live What about the state of the art nationwide, worldwide are you unique in some way or are you working in a collaborative fashion with other institutions of like kind? So I would say both what we're unique is to integrate these new ink based techniques really with new earth material to really drive the cost down but we also have a lot of collaboration with partners on the mainland which give us access to very unique characterization technique like the synchrotron at Berkeley or we have access also to other super computer at Lawrence even more national lab to really develop these new materials try to see how this material chemistry evolve, you know how the atoms travel at the interface when we heat them up so there is the actual technical side which is making the material which is what we do in my group but there is a lot of fundamental research that goes into that Not yet Who will own the patent? Will you Niko? I think it would be Laren or Mike I think it would be UH UH, yes Intellectual property Yeah, we have a personal Yeah, I think so There's a lot of industry interest I'm sure in what you're doing Yes, there is company we've been looking at these inks in the past but most of the that they use use very toxic inks and toxic chemicals so really our approach is to focus on toxic on matter that have low toxicity and inks that are can be processed very easily So what are you testing for? Is it like cost efficiency? What are the variables that are that then say okay now we're ready we're ready to commercialize this So the main chemistry would be the dollar per watt That's really what all the industry We're looking at cost and our approach is really to pick the chemicals that are earth abundant that we can find very easily in the earth crust So material science kind of thing? Yes, yes So what is that what's holding you back? Well, you can look at some technologies which are highly efficient but some of the constituent could be highly expensive like you talk about you know, 700 Either were hurt but also some others like there is a technology called CIGS copper, indium, gallium and selenium Copper is about That's going to be on the final exam Copper is about $5 per kilogram and indium and gallium are about $500 per kilogram So if we replace these two with cheaper amounts it would be big game changer so that's what we try to do So let's assume that you figure out the material science on this Let's assume that you're ready now and you have a way to manufacture it Would you manufacture it here or in China? Oh well, I hope it would be done in the US but it wouldn't be done in my lab Our capabilities are very small We make very small samples but the great thing about PB is that it's always related to the area so whether you make a small or larger one what matters is you know the efficiency based on the collection So when you get a bigger like utility grade you know it's still the same? No, so that's a very good point I was talking about at the research level but when you move from a single cell to the larger panel you have some dropping efficiency between for example the interconnection between the silicon cells or if you have a large module of thin film sometime you have some edge effects so the efficiency drops or the technique that I use with these vacuum techniques are non-uniform so you can have higher efficiency on one side of the panel and you know lower efficiency on the other side which is what we're trying to fight against with that print technology because we have that composition all over the substrates What is that technology? How do you do connectivity? How do you connect it up to the converter and all that? So the actual cell we start with a metal back contact then we grow the cell and then on top we have another set of transparent top contact so that really creates the device and so if you have a module you essentially have a very big piece of glass with a very you know long piece of metal so you use these new ones the ones you're developing alongside old ones? Absolutely, yes it's essentially the same architecture So it's disruptive nevertheless though You get this into the market, you're going to be a famous man I hope you'll still talk to us I will, just invite me back The goal is to get the cost down so that things like rooftop solar would be much cheaper than they are now That's one example, yes but we're working mostly at the utility scale for example I saw there is that plant in California where they had 9 million modules Can you imagine if you increase the efficiency by only 1% or 2% I mean the balance of systems would shrink significantly So it's not necessarily you talk about disruptive, it's really important but you know sometimes just like an increase of 8% or 2% or reducing the cost on a very large scale things take very large proportions There is disruptive and also incremental, it's really It's pretty exciting, how long have you been working on this? I've been with the University of Hawaii for 10 years, it's going to be 10 years this summer but specifically on that project I would say 5 years What's your credentials? I'm a material scientist I grew up in France I did my PhD in the field of microelectronic So for all these computer chips and then when I came here as a postdoctoral fellow I started working on artificial photosynthesis to make what we call solar fuels So it's an integrity device that makes hydrogen out of water And then I moved to Are you still in that at all? I am, yes Actually we have a very good partnership with universities across the nation and we have also some funding from the development of energy to work on that So yes, that still goes very well It's very exciting There are quite a few other things going on at HNEI and the Seoul So technology development area What other things are they doing that? What are you doing? As far as hydrogen there is some co-workers that you will meet at the end of the month who works on hydrogen storage So there is some synergistic activity as far as the material design I work at the material level so that doesn't really get old You can always work on a lot of different applications So hydrogen storage that you met work on batteries and also there is some activities across the two labs to potentially develop new materials So what we try to do is to give support to HNEI to help develop the next generation of materials for those who work at the device level because as you'll see there is people working at the grid level, at the system level and at the device levels So how like when you're doing your testing when do you get to a point to say okay, this is ready for commercialization where do we link up with who and are you working with these private partners on the front end or is it, when do you bring them in It's a very good question So we do, we had collaboration with private partners in the past and also through some of our collaboration that we have with our co-workers on mainland we also interact with these folks but it's sort of direct technology transfer as you may think If we have so that Eric Hammerman and we find a very exciting technology we would have to go through the patenting process through UH and maybe try to promote the technology to other companies Yeah, so because if you're discovering something and then you give it to a private company what's to prevent them from the name of that Well, I would make sure that we have the patent first and all the applications done before it starts We've been working in collaboration with a lot of other scientists and other institutions, Hider and Yan What's the special sauce you're bringing to it? What's the patent area you're looking at? So it's mostly again how we can create new materials you know drawing from our expertise from the work we did on solar fuels the past work that we did on photovoltaics How can we really establish new materials that could really compete with the existing technologies and our work is mostly at the material level using the input from our coworkers or the theorists or the person who can do the advanced characterization for us how we can really advance the technology of these materials and really push the technology That's like Edison looking for Tungsten Maybe Tungsten is a secret answer That's right What is the question I had? You've been in the field now for ten years Have you seen from where you started to today what kind of advances and you know has there been transformative or is this like evolving There is ups and downs and peaks and sometimes you see in given materials great advances and then as it turns out it's not as simple as we thought and there is some drubby tissues for example So it's really trying to move our pieces on the chest mass you know one at a time try to advance one part of the technology to address an issue You know sometimes it's really like you make a wonderful discovery that's going to help everything but in reality it's more like you try to address a specific issue of a given technology whether it's its durability its cost, the manufacturing So over the ten years what is the most exciting discovery project or thing that you worked on? Yeah I would say that the work that we do right now on these printing technologies are really exciting, it's very new and we managed to get very good materials of the shelf chemicals that we can get in the library easily we don't use highly toxic chemicals or other toxic elements and really being able to form these materials with high crystallinity very little defect is really a big challenge and I think we've succeeded in that way Spraying it on glass is that the way it works? Yes, yes So pretty much like a hinge printer Oh it's a 3D printer So it wouldn't be 3D because you really want the metal to be as dense as possible So you want to grow 3D but in a 2D fashion so it would be more like a layer by layer approach instead of having like an architecture So you mentioned it's not toxic on the other hand you are generating electricity from the combination of elements in this pattern so if you touch it don't you get a shock? Well the fact that it's not toxic so the chemicals themselves don't move during the photovoltaic process it's really an electronic process that happens in the cell so as far as the device is concerned nothing really evolves and moves out of the cell if you have a big panel you'd rather not touch the panel that's where our friend working on the grid and on the storage come in place So Nico how big is your laboratory? How many people are there to help you? How is it structured in this scientific crucible? So it varies right now I have two coworkers Kimberley who is a postdoc fellow and Alex who is a junior researcher so we are three sometime we have a student helper that come over the summer to help us with these processes it varies right now we are three and most of our daily work is remaking these materials day in day out so it's really processing laying these layers on top of each other testing the materials sending materials around to our collaborators so they can access different properties of the materials so it's it's technical So when you test it up so that you can see that you know this has so much I don't know So we actually have a solar simulator in the lab it's a big 1000 watt Xenon bulb so we don't have to go outside to test ourselves and so the cells themselves they are about one inch by one inch and we have access to the top and the back electrical contacts and we use probes and these probes are connected to a meter that tells us the current and the voltage and knowing the current and voltage we know the efficiency What is probably going to change things and the question I put to you is it going to be more useful in larger arrays of solar panels or smaller ones is it going to be the kind of thing that the homeowner would want to buy and plan for or is it going to be like community solar if we ever have that or you know you have to scale So the thin film technology can be used at different scales so whether it's at the utility scale or the homeowner scale that would be the same type of panel like this two meter by one meter frame but because they are thin film they can also be processed for wearables wearables technologies like on backpacks that you see sometimes these flexible modules or on shirts maybe or on tents so they can be reapplied to a lot of different technologies Oh my goodness I could power myself on with my shirt How about that What's your plan on this ten years Are you the principal investigator? Wonderful and we have a mirror to take So where is it going to go from here? So we have two kind of activities the one on photovoltaics which is that printed technology we are going to look for either new materials but also try to use try to apply this technology to current materials that are made with these vacuum techniques which are quite expensive and the other approach which is the solar fuel the idea is to create a device that can be just immersed in water that can just spit water into hydrogen and oxygen using sunlight So there is a lot of work on catalysis, on corrosion protection on you know materials development you know all these colors Small scale stuff is it? It really depends the fact is that you always have a certain watt of solar energy per meter square so if you want a lot of power you have to make it big so you know more efficient doesn't mean you want to shrink the size you want to keep the size and have more power out of a given unit of area So Mike we are out of time now and it befalls you We are summarized Oh wait before can I just do one minute of transformational Mike can summarize Go ahead It sounds like we are making advances at the Hawaii National Energy Institute on photovoltaic technology and it's got a great future You have to come back and tell us when you have that discovery Can I talk about one minute of transformational work We are at Hawaii Energy Policy Forum looking at this year's awardees or nominations and July 1 is the deadline So please submit your nominations to HawaiiEnergyPolicy.Hawaii.edu July 1 is the deadline and they are in various areas Policy Technologies like Niko is talking about as well as energy efficiency communication and outreach So please hit that button there that says submit nomination and come to our website July 1 is the deadline So Clean Energy Day Clean Energy Day August 28th you will hear who the awardees are and the governor will present the awards to you I knew you would say that Ok we are about done Niko I wonder if you could say farewell to our audience and if you don't mind could you please do it in French No problem See you soon Thank you See you soon