Energy & Environment award

Richard Swanson is president and chief technology officer of SunPower Corporation, which he founded in 1985 to commercialize the solar cell technology he developed while a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University.

Swanson figured out how to improve the capture of electrons in solar cells. Solar cells usually contain two thin layers of metal with a sliver of polycrystalline silicon inside. But polycrystalline silicon is in short supply worldwide. Swanson discovered that the metal foil on the top layer of a solar cell reflected some photons before they had a chance to hit the silicon layer. He put both layers of metal on the bottom of the cell, creating greater efficiencies and less need for polysilicon. The result: solar cell "wafers" that are thinner and less expensive to produce.

SunPower designs and manufactures high-performance solar electric systems for residential, commercial and utility-scale power plant customers around the world. Its solar cells and solar panels currently generate up to 50 percent more power than other solar technologies. In 2009, SunPower announced that its latest solar panel for the residential and commercial markets offers a conversion efficiency (a measurement of the amount of sunlight converted by the solar cell into electricity) of 19.3 percent, the highest for a commercially available, mass produced solar panel. The U.S. Department of Energy’s established a goal of is conversion efficiency 20% by the year 2020.

SunPower had revenue of US$1.4 billion in fiscal 2008, compared to US$775 million in fiscal 2007 and US$237 million in fiscal 2006. SunPower acquired PowerLight Corp., a large-scale solar power systems provider, in January 2007 for US$333 million, becoming a producer of energy, as well as energy-production technology. In 2008, this business segment, known as SP Systems, began serving the utility market in the United States. New business includes an agreement with Florida Power & Light Company to design and build two solar photovoltaic power plants, and another with Pacific Gas and Electric Company to design and build a 250 megawatt solar power plant in California.

According to Clean Edge, solar photovoltaics (including modules, system components, and installation) will grow from a US$29.6 billion industry in 2008 to US$80.6 billion by 2018. Annual installations reached more than 4 GW worldwide in 2008, up from 1 GW in 2004. Solar power has grown an average of 40 percent per year since the beginning of the decade, with global solar installations expanding from 600 megawatts in 2003 to nearly 3000 megawatts in 2008.