ISES Awards & Fellows 2021 - Honouring Excellence

Presented since 1975, this is the premier world award for outstanding intellectual leadership in the field of Solar Energy. Winners have an established & long-standing international reputation and have made significant contributions to the work and goals of ISES. The winner is invited to deliver an address at the ISES Solar World Congress.

This year's award is presented to  Dr. David Renné (USA)

Dr. Renné has shown longstanding leadership in the promotion of solar energy, energy efficiency and sustainability to both the US and the world. He is a globally recognized expert in Solar Resource Assessment based on his 45 years research contributions to this topic. In addition, he has been President of the International Solar Energy Society, Operating Agent of the International Energy Agency and has served as an Associate Editor of the Solar Energy Journal. In addition to his well-known headline jobs, he has served on dozens of committees in numerous capacities through the years. Because of his decade long efforts, ISES now has a stronger core and outlook.  David’s productivity, leadership, diplomacy and attention to detail in support of solar and other renewable energies is worthy of this important award.

We welcome everyone to join the ISES Solar World Congress to see Dr. Renné give the Farrington Daniels Lecture, on Friday, 29 October at 14:00 CEST. Learn more here. The title of his talk is  “Personal Reflections:  My Life’s Journey Toward a Renewable Energy World”.

This award honours important contributions to the harnessing of solar energy for practical use or a new concept, development or product for the same purpose. Receipts can be individuals, groups or corporate bodies. It has been presented since 1983 and the award includes a certificate and a cash prize derived from funds donated by Mrs. Marta Weeks, a long-time supporter of ISES and Platinum Member.

This year’s award is presented to the Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (GWNET)

The Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (GWNET) aims to advance the global energy transition by empowering women in energy through interdisciplinary networking, advocacy, training, and mentoring. GWNET seeks to address the current gender imbalances in the energy sector and to promote gender-sensitive action around the energy transition in all parts of the world. https://www.globalwomennet.org/.

In recognition of the late Dr. Hermann Scheer (1944-2010), this award was introduced and presented for the first time in 2011 to pay tribute to the solar hero whose enourmous contribution and vocal political commitment to solar energy were so effective in bringing about energy changes globally. The award is presented to a person who has made significant contributions to the advancement of solar energy policy.

This year's award is presented to Dr. Irene Giner-Reichl, Austria

Ambassador Irene Giner-Reichl has been a member of the Austrian Diplomatic Service since 1982. Her main area of expertise is economic and social development, women’s rights’ issues, environment, energy, and development cooperation. Irene Giner-Reichl founded the Global Forum on Sustainable Energy (GFSE) in 1999 as a multi-stake-holder platform for dialogues on energy in the service of sustainable development and acted as Convenor for the GFSE’s global and regional meetings (www.gfse.at).

Since 2013 she is Vice-President of the REN 21 Steering Committee. (www.ren21.net) and since 2017 founder and president of the Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (www.globalwomennet.org).

Introduced in 2015, the ISES Fellows status aims to recognize people who have given many years of distinguished service to ISES and have advanced the use of solar and renewable energy through research, education, communication and deployment. Fellows provide inspiration and mentoring to Young ISES members and form a pool of experienced solar and renewable energy experts to ensure that their knowledge and expertise can benefit ISES in various ways. The 2021 Fellows are:

Steve Meyers, USA

He served on the ISES Board of Directors from 2016 – 2019, during the 2018 – 2019 term he was on the Executive Committee. Steve was the Project Lead for both infographic instalments ISES has developed so far: Dispelling the Myths in 2018 and Solar Thermal Heat for Industry Processes in 2019. He was very engaged to work with ISES headquarters in successfully developing these products which are very useful to ISES to dispel myths about solar energy.

Paulette Middleton, USA

Dr Middleton has been on the ISES Board of Directors since 2010 where she has played many valuable roles both as a member of the Board and the Executive. A non-comprehensive list includes, ISES Secretary, ByLaws reviewer, coordinator of the society’s strategic planning and implementation of new directions, sustainable development interests, membership growth, coordinator among country sections, and educational programs, including ISREE.  She was Chair of the Solar and Society theme for the Solar World Congresses 2013, 2015 and 2017 and ISREE Congress 2019 and 2021

Dave Renné as Immediate Past President, USA

Aldo Steinfeld, Switzerland

Prof. Aldo Steinfeld has an excellent track record in engineering research and development of solar energy technologies. He is among the leading scholars in the field of solar thermochemical fuels and the most cited researcher in the world in this emerging field, in particular for his innovative ideas and pioneering research on efficient conversion of concentrated solar energy. Prof. Steinfeld was an ISES Board Director from 2016 – 2018.

These awards are presented to authors of papers considered to be outstanding contributions published in the ISES scientific journal, "Solar Energy". The award is presented to papers that demonstrate significant pioneering contributions to the solar energy literature, for innovative concepts or approaches, and whose quality and presentation have a lasting impact. The papers chosen for this award are selected by the the Editor-in-Chief, Subject Area Editors and Associate Editors of the Solar Energy Journal.  The award consists of a certificate and a small cash prize funded by Elsevier.

Concentrated Solar Power
The influence of atmospheric boundary layer turbulence on the design wind loads and cost of heliostats by Matthew J.Emes; Azadeh Jafari; Joe Coventry; Maziar Arjomandi

Photocatalysis
Recent advances in partially and completely derived 2D Ti3C2 MXene based TiO2 nanocomposites towards photocatalytic applications: A review by Adem Sreedhar and Jin-Seo Noh

Photovoltaics
Efficient fully roll-to-roll coated encapsulated organic solar module for indoor applications  by  Bárbara H.S.Miranda, Luiza de Q.Corrêa, Gabriela A.Soares, Juliana L.Martins, Paulo L.Lopes, Maria L.Vilela, Jair F.Rodrigues, Thainá G.Cunha, Rodrigo de Q.Vilaça, SergioCastro-Hermosa, LuanaWouk, DiegoBagnis

PV Systems, Grid Integration

Stabilization of light-induced effects in Si modules for IEC 61215 design qualification    by L.Repins, F.Kersten, B.Hallam, K.VanSant, M.B.Koentopp

Solar Heating and Cooling, Buildings
Integration of passive double-heating and double-cooling system into residential buildings (China) for energy saving    by Fang'aiChi,  Ruonan Wang,  Yonghe Wang

Solar Resource
An efficient method to identify uncertainties of WRF-Solar variables in forecasting solar irradiance using a tangent linear sensitivity analysis    by Jaemo Yang,  Ju-HyeKim, Pedro A.Jiménez, Manajit Sengupta, Jimy Dudhia, YuXie, Anastasios Golnas, Ralf Giering