Meet the Energy Leader: Wim Sinke

Photovoltaic solar energy (PV) is a key building block for a sustainable energy future. Industrial development and deployment started some 50 years ago and has been a big success in many ways. Cost has come down beyond imagination, performance has more than doubled, deployment has recently entered the terawatt regime, and more. Nevertheless, this has only been scratching the surface. Many big challenges, and fortunately also opportunities, lay ahead of us. Wim Sinke has worked in PV research and innovation for over 40 years and followed developments in the sector closely; in the Netherlands, in Europe, and globally. In this seminar he takes the audience on a tour along the major achievements in PV and shares his view on the challenges ahead, on the way towards impact in terms of fighting climate change as well as energy security.

Biography
Prof. dr. Wim C. Sinke (1955) is a specialist in the field of photovoltaic solar energy (PV) technology and application. Until his retirement in June 2022, he was principal scientist at TNO and professor of Photovoltaic Energy Conversion at the University of Amsterdam. He was also co-chair of the European Technology & Innovation Platform for Photovoltaics (ETIP PV).

Wim Sinke studied experimental physics at Utrecht University and did PhD research in the field of solar cells from 1981 to 1985 at the FOM Institute AMOLF in Amsterdam. He then worked as a postdoc at the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory in Tokyo, Japan, and as a group leader at AMOLF before joining ECN in 1990 to set up the research program in the field of PV. Since 1 April 2018, ECN and TNO have joined forces in the field of energy research and the research is carried out in TNO's Energy Transition unit.

For his research into solar cells and his contributions to the development and application of PV he received several prizes, among which the Royal Dutch/Shell Prize for Sustainable Development and Energy in 1999, and the prestigious European Becquerel Prize in 2011. In 2015 he was appointed Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion for his achievements in the field of solar energy.

This event is organized by the TU Delft Energy Initiative