Description

The modern lifestyle, which has developed in the last decades, is largely based on fossil energy reserves which have taken hundreds of millions of years to form. It is obvious that both due to climate change and resource depletion, humankind have to switch to renewable energy sources. The potential of solar energy is orders of magnitude above the alternatives and more than sufficient to support the needs. In my talk, I will discuss photovoltaics as the most elegant way to exploit the solar potential. The technology of photovoltaics has made huge progress in the last years and has just reached the point where subsidy-free applications become attractive.