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Marco Nardone with the solar panels on the Ice Arena roof
Nardone works to make solar energy more reliable, cost efficient
Energy from the sun — it sounds so abundant, clean and sustainable. However, actually translating solar energy into electrical power is a fairly complicated and expensive process. Dr. Marco Nardone, a theoretical physicist in the School of Earth, Environment and Society, is working with the U.S. Department of Energy to make materials used in solar electricity technology more durable and less costly.
"Solar energy is going to explode, and there's a growing market for it," Nardone said. "The Department of Energy and others are putting a fair amount of research into it. The goal of our research is to make these commercially relevant technologies more reliable."
He has been collaborating with the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden, Colo., through a three-year, $6 million grant from the Department of Energy. BGSU's part of the overall funding is $225,000, which will support Nardone's research and a graduate student for the project. BGSU is the only university working with NREL on the solar energy grant.
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