Vasilis Fthenakis awarded 2022 Boolean Solar Medal
Columbia Engineering’s Vasilis Fthenakis has received a prestigious award for his pioneering work in solar energy.
Vasilis Furtnakis MS’78, Founding Director Life Cycle Analysis Center and adjunct professors Earth and Environmental Engineering and electrical engineering, awarded the 2022 Ball Solar Medal. The award, accompanied by a $100,000 prize, recognizes world-renowned researchers who have made pioneering progress in renewable energy as an alternative form of energy.
Fthenakis has helped address concerns about rapid growth commercialization through pioneering work in variable renewable energy system integration and life cycle sustainability analysis. His main focus is to solve problems at the intersection of energy and the environment by developing predictive models, control techniques and methods. With the support of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the International Energy Agency, he created and led multinational collaborations.
Fthenakis founded Columbia University Life Cycle Analysis Center In 2006, technical and energy policy decisions were guided by a holistic description of the sustainability profile of the energy system. Focused on developing methods, models and tools for analyzing clean energy alternatives, he has been a pioneer in studying the environmental impact and resource availability of photovoltaics, accelerating their commercial application around the world. In addition, his research on renewable energy, nuclear energy and the coal life cycle has driven a wide range of sustainable technology and policy reforms.More recently, he has expanded the center’s research scope to explore renewable energy grid integration, solar desalination and “Green” hydrogen Production.
Fthenakis joined Columbia Engineering in 2006 with a joint appointment with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he served for decades as a senior research scientist assisting the photovoltaic industry and developing novel photovoltaic recycling technologies; from BNL in 2017 After retirement, he was awarded the honorary title of Distinguished Senior Scientist. He is the author of numerous books and publications, and is a Fellow of the American Society of Chemical Engineers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Fellow of the International Energy Foundation, and a co-founder and board member. Global Alliance for Clean Water Desalination.
Fthenakis has won numerous awards for his scientific achievements. These include the 2018 William R. Cherry Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for “pioneering research at the interface of energy and the environment that has contributed to the advancement and deployment of photovoltaic technology around the world.” Also in 2018, he from DOE was awarded $1.2 million in grants to advance solar thermal desalination technology, with approximately $1 million in follow-on grants from DOE and NREL this year.He also co-authored a textbook Power in the Sun Sunlight: PV System Integration and Sustainabilitywhich he used in his courses at Columbia.
Karl Wolfgang Böer, a visionary scientist whose work has led to major advances in renewable energy, founded the University of Delaware’s Institute for Energy Conversion in 1972 – the world’s oldest solar energy institution.this Ball Solar Merit Medal The award was established in 1991 to honor Böer. Former US President Jimmy Carter first received the medal in 1993, and previous recipients include the 2000 Nobel Prize winner in physics, Zores Alferov, and SunPower founder Richard Swanson.
Adapted from Post Columbia Engineering
