Page 318 - ISES SWC50

11.2 ISES Presidents 2010-2019
Figure 89: Dave Renné , President
2010 – 2019
11.3 ISES President 2020-2021
Figure 90: Klaus Vajen President
2020-2021
300 | ISES SWC50 - The Century of Solar-Stories and Visions
David Renné
Dave Renné (USA) was ISES president for ten-years, the longest
term of by any president. Renné has worked in renewable energy
R&D programs for over 40 years. After graduating from Colorado
State University with a Masters in Atmospheric Sciences and a PhD
in Earth Resources in 1975, he started his renewable energy career
at the U.S. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in 1977. He worked
primarily on wind resource assessment programs, both in the U.S.
and internationally. He was one of the early program area leaders
to support the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Characteristics
Program Element. He focused on wind resource assessments, wind
monitoring programs, and wind turbine wake studies.
He moved to the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Golden,
Colorado USA) in 1991 to manage NREL’s solar resource assessment
activities and to work on a number of international renewable energy
programs. He managed the development of the National Solar Radiation
Database, first produced in the mid-1990’s, and subsequently updated
several times. He introduced the use of satellite-derived solar resource
estimates into the NSRDB as well as other solar resource programs at
NREL. Following his retirement in 2012, he continues to remain engaged
in renewable energy programs through his consultancy, Dave Renné
Renewables. He is currently a Senior Consultant to Clean Power Research
and has consulted with the World Bank, the International Renewable
Energy Agency (IRENA), the Asian Development Bank, and several
private-sector organizations. He was involved in the early development
of the World Bank’s Global Solar Atlas as well as the IRENA Global Atlas.
He served as Treasurer on the Board of the American Solar Energy Society
for many years. From 2010 – 2019 he was President of the International
Solar Energy Society and continues to serve on the ISES Board. He has
been an Associate Editor of the Solar Energy Journal for the past 15 years.
Klaus Vajen
Professor Klaus Vajen (Germany) is Director of the Institute of
Thermal Engineering at the University of Kassel, Germany, where
he is the Chair of Solar- and Systems Engineering, and furthermore
Distinguished Professor of the Technical University of Kyrgyzstan
in Bishkek. He holds a PhD in Applied Physics and is (co-)author
of 300+ publications about (solar) thermal engineering, university
education and energy policy.
He is founder and Director of the MSc-programme “Renewable
Energies and Energy Efficiency” at the University of Kassel, as well
as the founder and Head of the council “University Educations on
Renewable Energies” with 120+ professors from German-speaking
countries. He developed and coordinates the Europe-wide PhD-
education on solar thermal technology, together with Professor U. Jordan.
Klaus was a member of the ISES Board of Directors from 2003-2011
and is a member again since 2018. He was Vice-president of ISES
2006-2007, founder of Young ISES (together with ISES Executive Secretary
J. McIntosh) and Chair of the Solar World Congress 2011 in Kassel. In
2019, Prof. Vajen was elected ISES President and started his term in
January 2020.