First Circular

RESEARCH DIRECTIONS IN SOLAR ENERGY -2014

First Series Symposium of

Solar Energy Research Institute for India and the United States (SERIIUS)

Organized By

Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

April 1-2, 2014

Preamble and scope

The U.S.-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE) was launched by President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in November 2009 to accelerate the transition to high performing, low emissions, and energy secure economies. Under the Research and Development track of PACE (PACE-R), three Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Centers (JCERDCs) have been set up in 2012, with funding from US’s Department of Energy and India’s Department of Science and Technology and Department of Bio-Technology. The largest of the JCERDCs, that for Solar Energy, is called the Solar Energy Research Institute for India and the United States (SERIIUS), which is co-led by National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) at Bangalore. This 30-member consortium is governed by a leadership team comprising of NREL, IISc, IIT Bombay, Sandia National Laboratory, CSTEP and RAND Corporation. The Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF) co-ordinates the activities of the Center in India.

The vision of SERIIUS is to create an environment for cooperation and innovation “without borders” to develop and ready emerging and revolutionary solar electricity technologies toward the long-term success of India’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Energy Mission and the U.S. DOE Sun Shot Initiative.The overall goalof SERIIUS is to accelerate the development of solar-electric technologies by lowering the cost-per-watt of photovoltaics (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) through a bi-national consortium that is innovating, discovering, and readying emerging, disruptive, and revolutionary solar technologies that span the gap between fundamental science and applied R&D, leading to eventual deployment by sustainable industries. SERIIUS addresses critical issues in fundamental and applied research, analysis and assessment, outreach, and workforce development. Throughout this joint effort, a key element is engaging a significant base of Indian and U.S. industry that is dedicated and committed to developing solar energy for both India and the United States.

As part of its outreach activities, the SERIIUS team is pleased to create a platform to address the development of new and cutting edge technologies in solar electricity generation and storage, through its first Series Symposium on RESEARCH DIRECTIONS IN SOLAR ENERGY, which is scheduled during April 1-2, 2014. The Symposium will be organized by the newly created Interdisciplinary Centre for Energy Research at IISc, Bangalore. The main objective of the two-day Symposium is to provide an exclusive forum for intellectually stimulating and engaging interactions among the leading researchers, students, policy makers and engineers from industries, on the recent developments of cutting edge technologies in PV and CSP.

Symposium Topics

  • Advances in research on Photovoltaics
  • Advances in research on Concentrated Solar Power
  • Storage Technologies
  • Integration Technology
  • Road Mapping, Technology Assessment, Policy Analysis

Advisory Committee (Tentative)

Dr. Anil Kakodkar – Former Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission

Dr. T. Ramaswami –Department of Science and Technology

Dr. K. VijayRaghavan- Department of Bio-Technology

Prof. Arup Kumar Raychaudhuri–SN Bose National Center for Basic Sciences

Dr. Ashvini Kumar- Solar Energy Corporation of India

Dr. BibekBandyopadhyay- formerly with Solar Energy Center

Dr. Lawrence L. Kazmerski –formerly with NREL

Dr. Joan Brennecke–University of Notre Dame

Dr. Walter Kohn- University of California, Santa Barbara

Prof. AjeetRohatgi- Georgia Institute of Technology

Dr. Ravi B. Grover-HomiBhabha National Institute

Prof. Vikram Kumar-IIT-Delhi

Dr. Roland Winston- University of California,Merced

Prof. D. V. Khakhar, IIT Bombay

Prof. P. P. Chakrabarti ,IIT,Kharagpur

Prof. I. Manna, IIT Kanpur

Prof. GautamBiswas ,IIT,Guwahati

Prof. VireshDutta, IIT, Delhi

Prof. S.C.Mullick, IIT, Delhi

Prof. J. Srinivasan, IISc Bangalore

Prof. C.V.R.Murthy, IIT, Jodhpur

Prof. D.D.Sarma,IISc Bangalore

Prof.K.S.Narayan , JNCASR, Bangalore

Steering Committee (Tentative)

Dr. David Ginley- NREL

Dr. William Tumas – NREL

Prof. JuzerVasi – IIT, Bombay

Dr. Maikel Van Hest- NREL

Dr. SubhashShinde – Sandia National Labs

Dr. AnshuBharadwaj – CSTEP

Dr. Henry H. Willis – RAND Corporation

Dr. Rajiv Sharma- IUSSTF

Dr. Sanjay Bajpai - DST

Dr. PrasadaRaju – DST

Dr. RenuSwarup - Ministry of Science & Tech

Prof. A. Jhunjhunwala – IIT, Madras

Prof. S. Srinivasa Murthy – IIT, Madras

Prof. Amlan Pal – IACS, Kolkata

Dr. ShrikantJoshi – ARCI, Hyderabad

Dr. S.S.Krishnan- CSTEP

Prof. ShaibalSarkar – IIT, Bombay

Dr. O.S.Sastry – Solar Energy Centre,

Dr. R.R. Sonde – Thermax

Dr. P.V.C. Rao – HPCL

Mr. GandhamSriganesh-HPCL

Dr. A. Paranjape – Clique

Dr. R.N. Das – BHEL

Dr.SiuliSarkar-Cookson

Dr. G. Rajeswaran-Moserbaer

Local Organizing Committee

Organizing Co-Chairmen

Prof. KamanioChattopadhyay – IISc Bangalore

Prof. PradipDutta – IIScBangalore

Co-Convenors

Prof. Praveen. C. Ramamurthy- IIScBangalore

Dr. SaptarshiBasu – IISc Bangalore

Members

Prof. S. Sampath,IISc

Prof. N. Ravi Shankar ,IISc
Prof. M. Giridhar, IISc

Prof. P. Thilagar,IISc

Prof. S. Raghavan,IISc

Prof. A.Ghoshal,IISc

Prof. S. Dasappa, IISc

Prof. B. Basu, IISc

Prof. R. V. Ravikrishna, IISc

Dr. G. S. V. L. Narasimham

Dr. P. Kumar, IISc

Dr. Monto Mani, IISc

Dr. G. Tomar, IISc

Dr. V. Srinivasan, IISc

Invited Speakersand Participants

This Symposium will include a number of invited presentations from experts in solar energy research from India, USA and other countries. In addition, a number of invited poster presentations will be made by research scholars and young scientists.

Accommodation

For the invited speakers seeking accommodation inside IISc Campus, some Guest House rooms have been reserved. Separate accommodation arrangement for students will also be made.

Venue

The Symposium will be held in SatishDhawan Auditorium, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Address for correspondence

The Convenor

Interdisciplinary Center for Energy Research (ICER)

Indian Institute of Science

Bangalore- 560012, INDIA

Phone: + 91-80-2293 3521

Email: