Page 102 - ISES SWC50

Daniel C. Lewis
Country: United States
Year Started Research: 1974
Title of Research: Passive Solar Principles
University: Total Environmental Action, Harrisville, NH
Still Active in Research: No

Daniel Lewis, PE became interested in solar energy while a physics major at Bard College. He became a
student member of the International Solar Energy Society in 1974 while at Bard. After Bard he attended
UMASS Amherst where as a research assistant he worked on computer modelling of Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion power plants. He received a Masters in Mechanical Engineering and joined Total Environmental
Engineering in Harrisville, NH in 1978. He was head of Consulting Services in the Design Department at TEA.
Dan Lewis and Joe Kohler developed TEASOL, a thermal network mainframe-based computer model based
on Joe’s work with TEANET. This model was used to simulate the hourly energy performance of passive solar
houses and was the tool used to develop the “Passive Principles” series of articles they wrote for Solar Age
Magazine in the early 1980’s. In addition, Dan was a reviewer for the early HUD Solar Grants issued under
the Carter Administration. He helped develop a solar curriculum for the Tennessee Valley Authority, worked
on the Brookhaven house for Brookhaven National Labs, and was a frequent presenter at solar conferences.
Dan Lewis and Joe Kohler later founded Kohler and Lewis, a mechanical engineering firm that specialized in
designing energy efficient HVAC systems. They were among the very first engineers to utilize energy recovery
ventilation systems for schools and to utilize mini-split heat pump systems for heating in the Northeast. Kohler
and Lewis designed the mechanical systems for many LEED projects and several Net-Zero and (successful) Living
Building Challenge projects. Dan and his wife Lesle are retired and live in New Hampshire. They have a PV system
and recently become part of an electric utility pilot project to study the impact of battery storage systems on electric
utility peak’s.

Eduardo Lorenzo
Country: Spain
Year Started Research: 1979
Title of Research: Professor - PV Systems
University: Solar Energy Institute - Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Still Active in Research: Yes

Professor Eduardo Lorenzo began his research in 1979 at the Solar Energy Institute of UPM in the field of
photovoltaic concentration technology. He was one of the pioneers in bifacial PV module technology. His first article
on the subject dates from 1984, allowing the transfer to the industrial sector through the creation of the Isofoton
company, and installing the first bifacial systems between 1984 and 1989, some of them still in operation today.
However, this early industrial production and practical use of bifacial PV modules has passed into oblivion. - But
his truly pioneering character is shown in its decision in 1984 to focus its research on the PV system as a system,
founding the Photovoltaic Systems Research Group (GSFV). Possibly one of the first to make this decision in the
world. His first project dates from 1984 in Senegal. He was a pioneer in PV rural electrification with Solar Home
Systems, for example in Sierra del Segura (Spain, 1987) or in the High Plateau in El Alto (Bolivia 1994), also in
PV pumping systems, participating in the Regional Sahel Program in 1993. He also led the awakening of grid-
connected PV systems with the world’s first PV plant of more than 1MWp in Toledo, in which he designed one of
the first horizontal north-south trackers that is still in operation. And he took advantage of the boom in the grid-
connection market in Spain between 2005 and 2008 to lead quality control of more than 1GWp accumulated of PV
plants not only in Spain but in more than 15 countries around the world, turning the GSFV into a benchmark in this
matter. He began his career with PV modules of less than 30Wp in Spain and now he is researching on 400MWp
PV plants in Mexico. This is the exciting life of a pioneer: you know where you start but you cannot imagine where
you end.

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