Page 64 - ISES SWC50

Jerome Martin Weingart
Country: USA
Year Started Research: 1962
Title of Research: PV-powered tetrahedral research satellites (TRS)
University/Research Centre: Space Technology Laboratories, California
Still Active in Research:

Jerome Weingart is a physicist whose work since 1962 has been at the nexus of renewable energy, sustainable
development, and poverty alleviation. He is a graduate of MIT and Brandeis University in physics. Jerome is a former
NASA engineer, research faculty member at Caltech, and former Regents’ Professor in Energy and Resources at
UC Berkeley. He has led assignments for UN agencies, the World Bank, ADB, USAID, and the private sector. He
has published extensively on physics, renewable energy, and international development. In 1971 he persuaded
the author of President Nixon’s Congressional message on energy resources to include two sentences on solar
energy: In response the NSF/NASA Solar Energy Panel was established January 1972. It produced the foundation
for a national solar energy R&D program. He led the renewable energy program at the International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis in the mid-1970s. His collaboration with IIASA produced the prize-winning monograph
The Helios Strategy, which quantified the potential for global deployment of solar and wind energy systems.
Jerome would say that he is not a lone pioneer, but someone who thrives on collaboration, cooperation, and trans-
disciplinary initiatives, and works best in institutions and programs that support such initiatives. From this have
come: The Village Power Program at NREL, culminating in two global Village Power Conferences at the World Bank
in 1998 and 2000: The Eastern Islands Pilot Project to electrify villages using solar/wind hybrid power systems, with
Westinghouse / IPC and Indonesian Government; Renewable energy and energy-efficient building design, for the
US Government, Sandia, private A&E firms. Co-authored pioneering studies and book New Energy Technologies for
Buildings / Institutional Problems and Solutions (with Richard Schoen and Alan Hirshberg) at JPL and Caltech and
Commercial diffusion of residential solar water heating in Southern California: JPL, Caltech, SoCal Gas Co.

Prof. Masafumi Yamagichi

Country: Japan
Year Started Research/Industry: 1968
Institute: NTT Electrical Communications Laboratories
Still Active in Research/Industry:

Prof. Masafumi Yamaguchi received his Ph.D. degrees from Hokkaido University in 1978. In 1968, he joined the NTT
Electrical Communications Laboratories, where he was engaged in research on semiconductors but in particular,
III-V compound solar cells working as a Supervisor and a Section Head. Dr. Yamaguchi was the first to demonstrate
the superior radiation-resistance of InP materials and solar cells. His group also developed high-efficiency and
radiation-resistant InP cells with efficiencies of 17% at AM0 and showed the great potential of InP cells for space
applications in 1983. The first satellite using InP cells was launched in early 1990. His group also proposed a double-
hetero structure tunnel junction for realizing a high performance and stable multi-junction cell interconnection in
1987. They developed high-efficiency (20% at AM1.5G) GaAs solar cells fabricated on Si substrates in 1989 and
demonstrated space flight experiment using GaAs-on-Si cells in 1994. In 1994, he moved to being Professor at the
Toyota Technological Institute, Director of the Super High Efficiency Photovoltaics Research Center. Prof Yamaguchi
has been an International Committee member for the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference since 1994.
He is an Editor of the journals “Progress in Photovoltaics” and “Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews”. He
made considerable contributions to R&D of photovoltaic technology as a member of the New Sunshine Program
Promotion Committee of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and as a Chairman of Super High-Efficiency
Solar Cell Committee of the New Energy and Technology Development Organization. He has published more than
200 original papers and presented at more than 250 International Conferences. He was are cognised with William
Cherry Award in 2008 and the Becquerel Prize in 2004.

46 | ISES SWC50 - The Century of Solar-Stories and Visions