Solar energy leaders come together for 4th Arizona Solar Summit

February 17, 2014

The Arizona Solar Summit brings together people and organizations to advance the solar industry on both the regional and national levels, creating a network to propel Arizona to national prominence in the industry.

The fourth annual Arizona Solar Summit, part of the 2014 Sustainability Solutions Festival, will focus on introducing innovative policies, programs and technologies that are critical to reshaping Arizona’s energy markets. Arizona Solar Summit IV Download Full Image

Participants will gain a better understanding of Arizona’s current energy market conditions, solar energy’s place in regional and national markets, and ideas for accelerating the penetration of clean technologies into this market.

What: Arizona Solar Summit IV

When: 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 20

Where: ASU SkySong, 1475 N. Scottsdale Rd. RM 150, Scottsdale, 85257

Cost: $175 standard registration; $75 non-profit and community partners; $35 student registration

Registration: https://www.regonline.com/azsolarsummitIV

Media Opportunities:

Attending members of the media will have the following opportunities to engage with speakers and participants at the Arizona Solar Summit:

Discuss current issues at roundtable discussions
Capture address from keynote speaker, Bill Harris, CEO and president of Science Foundation Arizona
Observe multiple panel discussions with industry and thought leaders
Participate in industry networking sessions
Interact with solar energy exhibitors, including startups and research organizations
Interview speakers following panel discussions

Agenda:

Full details are available online at http://azsolarsummit.org/summit-iv-february-2014. Highlights include:

7:30-9 a.m.: Roundtable discussions being led by ASU experts on a variety of renewable and solar energy topics, including policy and scientific developments at ASU, and water/energy nexus issues
9:15-10:30 a.m.: Kris Mayes, director of the Utility of the Future Center, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law professor and former chairman on the Arizona Corporation Commission moderating Panel I: Utility of the Future: How New Technology Is Bringing Change and Opportunity to Electric Companies and Their Customers. This panel features:
- Charles Bayless, North America Energy Holdings
- Bob Graham, Southern California Edison (retired)
- Tim Berg, Sacramento Municipal Utility District
- Meghan Nutting, Solar City
10:45 a.m. - noon: Gary Dirks, director of the Global Institute of Sustainability at ASU and director of LightWorks moderating Panel II: De-Carbonizing the Energy System. This panel features:
- Charles Bayless, North America Energy Holdings
- Tim Berg, Sacramento Municipal Utility District
- Kerry Smith, W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University
- Ellen Stechel, LightWorks, Arizona State University
12:20-1 p.m.: Bill Harris, CEO and President, Science Foundation Arizona, keynote speaker
1-1:15 p.m.: Sethuraman Panchanathan, senior vice president, Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development, ASU will give an address
1:30-2:45 p.m.: Harvey Bryan, professor at the Design School and School of Sustainability, ASU moderating Panel III: Deep Energy Retrofit Financing. This panel features:
- Daniel Hunter, account executive, Ameresco
- Dimitrios Laloudakis, energy manager, City of Phoenix
- Scott Muldavin, Rocky Mountain Institute
3-4:15 p.m.: Leisa Brug, energy policy advisor to Governor Jan Brewer and director, Arizona Governor's Office of Energy Policy moderating Panel IV: National Governors Association Policy Academy Targeting Clean Energy for Economic Development and Briefing on the Arizona Master Energy Plan. This panel features:
- Bennett Curry, Arizona Commerce Authority
- Representative Frank Pratt, Arizona State House
- Senator Bob Worsley, Arizona State Senate
4:15-4:30 p.m.: Closing remarks by Gary Dirks and Todd Hardy, vice president of assets, ASU Foundation for a New American University and senior economic development adviser, Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development, ASU
4:30-6 p.m.: Reception, Networking & Technology Showcase

Learn more at www.azsolarsummit.org.

Artificial leaf jumps developmental hurdle

ASU scientists report advances toward perfecting the design of a functional artificial leaf that uses solar energy to convert water cheaply and efficiently into hydrogen and oxygen.

Read the article

Artificial leaf jumps developmental hurdle

February 17, 2014

In a recent early online edition of Nature Chemistry, ASU scientists, along with colleagues at Argonne National Laboratory, have reported advances toward perfecting a functional artificial leaf.

Designing an artificial leaf that uses solar energy to convert water cheaply and efficiently into hydrogen and oxygen is one of the goals of BISfuel – the Energy Frontier Research Center, funded by the Department of Energy, in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Arizona State University. Bio-inpired solar fuel production Download Full Image

Hydrogen is an important fuel in itself and serves as an indispensible reagent for the production of light hydrocarbon fuels from heavy petroleum feed stocks. Society requires a renewable source of fuel that is widely distributed, abundant, inexpensive and environmentally clean.

Society needs cheap hydrogen.

“Initially, our artificial leaf did not work very well, and our diagnostic studies on why indicated that a step where a fast chemical reaction had to interact with a slow chemical reaction was not efficient,” said ASU chemistry professor Thomas Moore. “The fast one is the step where light energy is converted to chemical energy, and the slow one is the step where the chemical energy is used to convert water into its elements viz. hydrogen and oxygen.”

The researchers took a closer look at how nature had overcome a related problem in the part of the photosynthetic process where water is oxidized to yield oxygen.

“We looked in detail and found that nature had used an intermediate step,” said Moore. “This intermediate step involved a relay for electrons in which one half of the relay interacted with the fast step in an optimal way to satisfy it, and the other half of the relay then had time to do the slow step of water oxidation in an efficient way.”

They then designed an artificial relay based on the natural one and were rewarded with a major improvement.

Seeking to understand what they had achieved, the team then looked in detail at the atomic level to figure out how this might work. They used X-ray crystallography and optical and magnetic resonance spectroscopy techniques to determine the local electromagnetic environment of the electrons and protons participating in the relay, and with the help of theory (proton coupled electron transfer mechanism), identified a unique structural feature of the relay. This was an unusually short bond between a hydrogen atom and a nitrogen atom that facilitates the correct working of the relay.

They also found subtle magnetic features of the electronic structure of the artificial relay that mirrored those found in the natural system.

Not only has the artificial system been improved, but the team understands better how the natural system works. This will be important as scientists develop the artificial leaf approach to sustainably harnessing the solar energy needed to provide the food, fuel and fiber that human needs are increasingly demanding.

ASU chemistry professors involved in this specific project include Thomas Moore, Devens Gust, Ana Moore and Vladimiro Mujica. The department is a unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Key collaborators in this work are Oleg Poluektov and Tijana Rajh from Argonne National Laboratory.

This work would not have been possible without the participation of many scientists driven by a common goal and coordinated by a program such as the Energy Frontier Research Center to bring the right combination of high-level skills to the research table.

The Department of Chemisry and Biocehmistry is an academic unit in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.