About the Presentation

An overview will be given of the technicalities, value chain, market, incentives and potential of photovoltaics.

Both the present situation and medium and long term outlook of photovoltaic solar energy will be discussed.

About the Speaker

Johan F. NIJS was born on October 12, 1954.

He received the Electrical Engineering University degree in 1977, the Ph.D. degree in Applied Sciences in 1982 and the degree of Master of Business Administration in 1994, all from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.

After having worked respectively at Philips (Belgium), K.U.Leuven (Belgium) and I.B.M. Thomas J. Watson Research Center (NY, USA), he joined in 1984 the Interuniversity Micro-Electronics Center (IMEC) in Leuven, Belgium, where he became groupleader of the silicon materials and solar cell activities. In 2000 he became an associate vice-president and department director of the Packaging, MEMS and Photovoltaics department.

From 1990 onwards he has also been appointed part-time associate professor at the K.U. Leuven.

From 1995 till 1997 he also part-time managed Soltech in Leuven, Belgium. Soltech commercializes photovoltaic energy systems.

Since December 2001 his main activity had been the set-up of the IMEC spin-off company PHOTOVOLTECH in Tienen, Belgium, which he fully joined in January 2003 as General Manager. PHOTOVOLTECH manufactures photovoltaic solar cells.

Johan Nijs is senior member of the IEEE.