January in Sydney saw students converge on UNSW for the PV & Design summer school; a week-long initiative hosted with the Centre for Exciton Scienceto help science and engineering students develop innovative ideas for exploiting solar power. Professor Angele Reinders from the University of Twente in the Netherlands took the students through the process of design, supported by lectures on fundamentals of solar power by Ned and Dr Murad Tayebjee, and photochemistry and excitonic interactions by Professor Tim Schmidt. The students finished the week by pitching their preliminary designs and undertaking a practical session on Coogee beach, building luminescent solar concentrators with Alain Rives. The students will continue to develop their innovative designs over the coming months, some of which have already inspired new research activities. The outcomes of the workshop will be presented at the forthcoming IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists conference in June 2019 in Chicago.
