.jpg)
Ask anyone at Tufts about renewable energy, and you’re likely to open the floodgates to enthusiastic prognostics about its future potentials and appreciations of its current applications. But if you ask your classmates some more questions — how exactly does one harvest solar energy? What are the different ways to do so in an everyday context? How and where is solar energy being used? What will the industry look like in ten years? — the response might be a little more muted. Ahmed Zayan, a 2018 Robyn Gittleman Graduate Teaching Fellow, is dedicated to supplying at least some of the answers with his ExCollege course, Harvesting Solar Energy.
“At Tufts, we fancy ourselves as trailblazers in our respective fields, and considering that the world is taking a more favorable approach towards clean energy, I believe that we should strive to be pioneers in the field, starting with a course as basic as this one.” Ahmed Zayan
A favorable approach is putting it mildly. According to the Department of Energy, “demand for solar in the United States is at an all-time high” and the industry is experiencing “unprecedented growth” as both the technology and its methods of implementation are becoming more affordable and efficient. The industry generated $154 billion in U.S. economic activity in 2016 and now employs 250,000 Americans. Looking past our borders, though, the full extent of solar energy’s rise really comes into play with startling numbers. The World Economic Forum’s website estimates that ”China is expected to add 40% of the world’s new solar panels between now and 2022,” and that “the [global] amount of solar power capacity expected to be added in the coming years is equivalent to 70,000 new solar panels every hour — enough to cover 1,000 soccer pitches every day.”
It’s clear that the industry isn’t slowing down anytime soon, but it isn’t necessarily the easiest thing to get into. Ahmed, who hails from Alexandria, Egypt and is currently a PhD candidate in the Tufts Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, knows firsthand the frustrations one might encounter while trying to actually learn about solar energy in a scholastic context. After all, his primary motivation for teaching the class stemmed from his own experience — both as an engineer and as an undergraduate student — with the nonexistence of renewable energy curricula in engineering schools.
This lack of readily accessible knowledge left him “bewildered,” by his own definition, about the issues he grew more and more intrigued about. After some hefty personal research, Ahmed decided to bring together all the information he found in “scattered sources around the internet and books by renowned authors and scientists in the field” and bring it to Tufts students in a way that would “broaden their horizons” — if not directly encourage them to pursue a career in solar energy. “Realistically, my goal is to supply [students] with enough cursory information to be aware of the need of an alternative, renewable source of energy like the sun,” he says.
Regardless of career aspirations, the class is a perfect opportunity to get up to speed on one of the ways to power the world in decades to come. Ahmed and his students focus on not only the “working mechanics that underlie the design of solar cells and solar thermal plants around the world” but also “elements of current policies that help either promote or deter the growth of the solar industry.” This gives them a well-rounded, fundamental understanding of the technological, political, and economic aspects of solar energy. There’s also a strong emphasis on peer discussion and interactive activities that “make the learning process that much more fun and intuitive for everyone,” as Ahmed points out.
Wish you were learning about the basics of photovoltaics right now? There are plenty of fantastic resources that’ll help you get started. One of Ahmed’s favorites is https://pveducation.org/, which he’ll often “bring up in class to demonstrate concepts and ideas that are often difficult to explain without the need of a visual aids.” But he also makes it clear that his own personal mission to educate the next generation about solar energy doesn’t end outside his classroom, encouraging anyone interested to reach out to him through email: “Though my knowledge might be limited, I'd like to think that I might be able to guide them down the correct path!”
About the Author
Max Lalanne is a senior majoring in Film & Media Studies. Born in Paris and raised in New Hampshire, when he's not writing for The ExPress, he's running his own daily newsletter, News in French. He plans to continue a career in media and publishing.