Lighting the way for future photovoltaics innovators

This summer, nine teams of high school students from Arizona and Indiana traveled to Chicago to present their innovative solar energy projects at the 46th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC) High School Competition.

The conference brings together leaders in photovoltaics from around the world to share photovoltaic-related innovations. This research forum strengthens collaborations, moves forward basic and applied photovoltaic science and engineering and showcases the latest technical developments in photovoltaic characterization and manufacturing.

Each year, the conference hosts a high school solar project competition, giving solar energy researchers an opportunity to interact with the next generation of photovoltaic specialists.

Each team in this year’s competition developed a solar energy project working under the mentorship of a graduate student or postdoctoral researcher from Arizona State University, Purdue University or the University of New Mexico.

Mentors met with teams virtually or face-to-face throughout the school year to offer advice, feedback and encouragement on the projects, which ranged from modifying vertical solar energy farms to using solar energy to charge robot batteries. 

Seven of the teams were sponsored by the Quantum Energy and Sustainable Solar Technologies Engineering Research Center. Based at Arizona State University, QESST is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. The eight-university consortium focuses on solving challenges to harnessing solar power in technologically effective and economically viable ways.

Michelle Jordan is the education director of QESST and an associate professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at ASU. She was integral in organizing the high school competition at the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, collaborating with Peter Bermel of Purdue, Silvana Ayala Pelez of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sarah Kurtz of the University of California, Merced. Pelez and Kurtz are both members of QESST.

“Thanks to a generous grant from the NSF, 12 high school students from Arizona were able to travel to the conference to participate in person with their Chicago-area peers,” Jordan said. “These youth scholars were fully integrated into the conference experience, attending the opening keynote session and touring the exhibition hall before participating in the poster session alongside the adult presenters. Such cross-age events help create a sense of belonging for young aspiring engineers.”

For Alex Killam, an electrical engineering doctoral student in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and one of the PVSC mentors, the opportunity to help inspire the future generation of engineers was rewarding.

“I kind of got into engineering from participating in programs similar to the PVSC competition. That’s what helped me out when I was in high school,” Killam said. “It’s important to pass that torch on to get more people involved. It’s great to get kids interested in STEM even if it’s not necessarily the exact area that they’re going to pursue later in life. But for them to get into a problem-solving mindset early on is important.”

Youth Scholar finds ways to promote clean energy and drinking water

One of the QESST-sponsored teams, composed of students from Bioscience High School in Phoenix, was challenged to help combat unsafe drinking water in the Dominican Republic.

The engineering research project was spearheaded by 14-year-old Victor Suarez-Gonzalez who was inspired to help solve the problem of limited access to clean drinking water in many parts of the world.

After interviewing stakeholders in the Dominican Republic and conducting research to identify the root causes of the problem, Victor and his team found that despite access to clean and safe drinking water, some people who live in campos (fields) or in barrios in the Dominican Republic choose not to use available water filtration methods. This puts them in danger of contracting illnesses such as E. coli, salmonella and dysentery.

The team designed a mobile solar-powered curriculum designed to increase trust and decrease misunderstanding of water purification methods. Their solution uses a visual demonstration of the water purification process and a hands-on curriculum including a bilingual field guide to explain each stage of purification.

“(Victor) started this project when he was in the sixth grade at Sevilla West Middle School,” said Mia DeLaRosa, facilitator for QESST’s Youth Scholar summer program and a teacher in the Alhambra Elementary School district.

“In school, Victor and his teammates were studying the Dominican Republic, where a lot of the area has inconsistent access to electrical power. In order for their project to be implemented and for their innovation to work, they realized they needed to incorporate solar technology,” she said.

So Suarez-Gonzalez looked for a solution that could help address his clients’ water needs using a clean, reliable power source.

The team built a bilingual field guide that can be displayed on a solar-powered tablet. The curriculum is accompanied by a prototype of a water filtration system that uses recycled plastic water bottles, coffee filters and a solar panel to power an Arduino, a turbidity sensor and UV light that removes bacteria and pathogens from drinking water.