The conference was very well attended and offered excellent networking opportunities.  James McKenzie from Photonstar, one of the leading LED lighting companies, set the scene by providing an overview of the novel approaches in combining solar energy with LED to improve energy efficiency and reduce costs. This was followed by a presentation from Michael Beale of Solar Technologies, a subsidiary of British Gas who outlined the challenges in solar panel installations and quantified the costs of current solar technologies in relation to efficiency. His findings that hybrid technologies will provide more output in relation to the required surface area was supported by Prof. Ravi Silva, Director of the ATI, University of Surrey, who demonstrated the changing landscape of PV technologies and highlighted the importance of hybrid technologies in improving efficiency and reducing costs. This was followed by a talk from Neil Truphet of Ownergy, an advisory on solar panel installations, who outlined the new changes in feed in tariffs and the business case for installing solar panels in homes as well as business and university premises. 

 

Dandan Zhu from Colin Humphreys group in Cambridge provided an overview of the future of LEDs and how they can reduce the electricity consumption, considering that 19% of the global electricity use in 2005 was spent in lighting. Arguing the case for LEDs, Dr Zhu highlighted that a typical 40 inch LED TV consumes only 100 W compared to 170 W of LCD TVs.

 

Tiju Joseph of the Surrey Knowledge Transfer Account highlighted the opportunities and models for photonics and PV companies to work with the university researchers through the KTA scheme and demonstrated how KTA can reduce the business risk, raising an increased level of interest from the delegates.

 

The conference was concluded with a talk from John Lincoln of SEPNET who highlighted the PV supply chain in the UK and provided an overview of new funding opportunities.

 

KTA, which supports university researchers to improve the technology readiness level of their research outcomes, organises focused events at the University to bring together Surrey researchers with industry. Further enquires related to the KTA’s Nanotechnology and Photonics Platform can be directed to tiju.joseph@npl.co.uk.