Dr. Joshua Stein is a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories where he has led R&D projects for the past 17 years. His current research interests include novel PV module and system designs and materials, characterization methods, PV performance models and reliability. He represents the US as a member of the International Energy Agency (IEA) PVPS Task 13 on PV Performance and Reliability. In 2010, he founded of the PV Performance Modeling Collaborative (PVPMC) and has organized nine international workshops on modeling and PV technologies. Previously, he contributed to advances in nuclear waste disposal, underground storage of petroleum products and fundamental studies on the hydrology of the oceanic crust. He has authored more than 150 publications. Dr. Stein received his Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Boris Farnung joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in 2008. He is head of group PV Power Plants and over the years has gained extensive experience in quality assurance on both the module and the system level from projects worldwide.

He is operating agent of the IEA PVPS Task 13 - Performance and Reliability of Photovoltaic Systems.

His key competences and fields of activity are
Quality assurance and bankability support for utility scale PV Power Plantsbr
Module Testing and Characterization (Indoor and Outdoor)
Research in PV Module and System Technology
Expert Training and Scientific Studies

Sicheng Wang is a research fellow in Energy Re- search Institute National Development and Reform Commission. Executive member of the council of China Renewable Energy Society. Vice director of China Renewable Energy Industry Association (CREIA). Vice director of China Renewable Energy Society-Photovoltaic Society (CPVS).

Mr. Wang graduated from Xiamen University and received his master degree in 1981. Since 1982, he has been engaged in developing products of the solar photovoltaic (PV) power and engineering construction more than 35 years. He presided and participated in developing dozens of products of the PV power, hun- Sicheng Wang dreds of engineering construction, and formulated the national“bright project” demonstration engineering and the PV electricity price policy, and set 5 national standards on PV system and components. The international cooperation projects he charged and participated including, Global Environmental Facility (GEF)/the World Bank Renewable Energy Development Project (REDP), United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Renewable Energy Project, Sino-US Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Project, Renewable Energy and Energy Part- nership (REEEP) Countryside Electrification Project, European Union Renewable Energy Train Project, Sino-Canada Cooperation Project (CIDA), the Asian De- velopment Bank Nepal Power Station, Tajikistan Solar Street Lamp Project, the World Bank Beijing Sunshine Campus, etc. Mr. Wang has rich experience in on- and off-grid PV projects.

Research Interests:
1.Photovoltaic Science and Technology
2.Semiconductor Quantum Electronic Devices

Biographical Sketch:
1.Ph.D., Semiconductor Physics and Semiconductor Device, 1995, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
2.Professor in Physics, 1999, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
3.Changjiang Chair Professor, 2000, Minister of Education
4.Distinguished Young Scientist Award, 2001, National Science Foundation of China
5.Changjiang Innovation Group Leader, 2005, Minister of Education
6.Director, 2009, Key Laboratory of Artificial Structures and Quantum Control, Ministry of Education
7.Chairman, 2011, Shanghai Solar Energy Society
8.Distinguished PV Scientist Award, 2016, International Photovoltaic Power Generation Conference & Exhibition

Marcel Suri is an expert in solar power assessment and forecasting. He has received PhD in geography and , and is co-author of more than 100 scientific publications. Marcel Suri is one of authors of the decision support online system PVGIS, which contributed to development of photovoltaics in Europe. He managed a several R&D projects, and is active in the definition and market implementation of approaches that are introducing better transparency and increased efficiency in solar industry. He is active in grid-integration studies related to solar photovoltaics.

Marcel Suri consults developers and operators of solar power plants, investors, banks, and governmental institutions. He is managing director of Solargis Company, which provides solar and meteorological data and photovoltaic simulation software for planning, monitoring and forecasting of solar power.

Dr. Yibo Wang is employed as a professor by IEE CAS. He also serves in part time as a member of strategic research board on smart grids of the MoST of China, a co-Lead of the "Smart Grids Innovation Challenge" in Mission Innovation, an official expert of China in IEA PVPS Task14, a member of the Photo- voltaic Committee of CRES and a member of the Grid Integration Committee of CRES. His research inter- esting includes renewable energy system and grid in- tegration. He has participated as the principle scientist or the primary member in 16 of national RD&D proj- ects in China; led to develop ±10kV/200kW DC-DC converter for PV, 200 kW auto-synchronous inverter, and the design software for PV station; and led to es- tablish several distinguished demonstrations including 10 MW-class hydro/PV/battery hybrid micro-grid, the grid integrating demonstration of 20 MW DGPV. He is also funded by the Special Researcher Program of CAS, and the High-level Talent Program, " Tianshan Scholars", of Xinjiang Province. He has published 5 books, dozens of papers, and 20+ patents.

Dr. Bruce King is a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories where he has served as Technical Director of the Photovoltaics Systems Evaluation Lab since 2011. His current research interests include PV module and system characterization methods, PV performance models and reliability. Dr. King’s career has spanned several different engineering disciplines ranging from processing and characterization of structural ceramics to systems engineering of commercial additive manufacturing equipment. He has over 25 years of combined experience in university, national lab and industry research. He spent 11 years in industry, where for six years, he was R&D director of the Aerosol Jet Print division of Optomec. He has authored 63 publications and holds 42 patents. Dr. King received his B.S in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Alabama – Birmingham and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Amy Halloran, P.E., is the Sr Manager for Renewable Energy Technologies at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM.  She is responsible for Sandia’s $50M Renewable Energy Program which includes fundamental and applied R&D in the areas of Geothermal, Concentrating Solar, Solar Photovoltaics, Water, and Wind Energy for the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and private industry.  She previously managed Sandia’s Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysics Departments and was the Deputy for Sandia’s Climate and Engineered Earth Systems Program.  As part of that role she led Sandia’s multi-discipline Arctic Research portfolio.  Prior to joining Sandia in 2011, Ms. Halloran spent 22 years at CH2MHILL managing and delivering projects in the areas of hazardous waste site investigation and cleanup, air pollution control, and industrial waste treatment.  Her final position at CH2MHILL was Vice President and Technology Manager for their Environmental business line.  Ms. Halloran has a BS in Chemical Engineering from Virginia Tech and an MS in Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois.

Sr. Manager, Performance Engineering

SunPower Corporation

Ben Bourne manages the Performance Engineering group in SunPower’s Products division. During his 10 years at SunPower, Ben developed SunPower’s proprietary PV system simulation tool, PVSim, and evolved SunPower’s modeling development and validation effort into an industry-leading platform for predicting PV system performance. He now works to advance SunPower’s understanding of the industry’s performance-related needs and to develop analytical and practical solutions to these challenges. Bourne holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University.

Max Mittag joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in 2009. He is project manager and scientist within the team “Module Efficiency and New Concepts” and has developed new module concepts and process technologies. He is currently working on the detailed efficiency analysis of PV modules and cell-to-module (CTM) loss modelling.

His key competences and fields of activity are
Module production and process development
Evaluation of new PV module concepts
Efficiency and cost analysis of PV modules
Cell-to-module gain and loss calculation

André Richter received his diploma degree in electronic engineering (communication engineering, process measuring and control technology and environmental measurement) and operated 11 years own company for electronic education systems. Since 2001 he is working in photovoltaic area: In Conergy AG in development and 3rd level support of solar plants, Conergy Electronics GmbH as CEO and had been Technical Director in Conergy solar plant Frankfurt (Oder). In 2008 he worked at Geneva based company SES and as a consulting in US to build up module lines. Since 2010 he is working at Meyer Burger Technology AG in technical business development to establish and realize strategic projects. In addition he is leading the outdoor measurements at Meyer Burger own test sites.

Dr. Harry Wirth, born in 1968, joined Fraunhofer ISE in 1993 and received a diploma degree in physics in 1995 from the University of Freiburg, Germany. He earned his PhD from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) and from 1999 he headed the R&D group of a specialty insulating glazing manufacturer.

In 2005, he returned to Fraunhofer ISE to build the group “Photovoltaic Modules”. He was also responsible for the setup of the PV Module Technology Center at Fraunhofer ISE. From October 2010 he headed the division “Photovoltaic Modules, Systems and Reliability“, with a staff of 130 employees engaged mainly in the development, testing and quality assurance of PV modules and power plants. Since July 2017, he is a director of ISE’s Photovoltaics Division. Harry Wirth is also a director of CFV Solar Test Laboratory, Albuquerque and board member of VDE-ISE Pte Ltd., Singapore.

Dr. Wittmer received his PhD in Physics in 2001 from the Technical University Aachen, Germany, working in the R&D of semiconductor detectors for particle physics experiments. In 2003 he went to Geneva, Switzerland, for a fellow position at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN). He was involved in planning, building, commissioning and operating the Silicon Tracking Detector of the CMS experiment at the LHC collider.

In 2013 he became scientific collaborator at PVsyt SA. There he is responsible for the development and validation of simulation models. He also participates regularly as teacher in the PVsyst training sessions. Dr Wittmer has been presenting the PVsyst research and software development on many conferences and workshops in Europe and in the United States.

Mr. Wang serves as the CTO of Arctech Solar Hold- ing Co., Ltd. (Arctech Solar). Director of the Research Institute of Arctech Solar; Committee member of IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission); Vice ex- ecutive secretary of China Tracker Industry Alliance; He was appointed part-time researcher and enter- prise mentor of master degree candidate in Harbin institute of technology (Weihai) in 2016; The major research area including solar tracker system, smart photovoltaics (PV) power station, high-efficiency PV station, high-efficiency bifacial PV module.

Mr. Wang is responsible for the technology research and development of Arctech Solar. He introduces the concept of the redundant design of the linkage hor- izontal single axis tracker system, reducing the cost and improving the reliability of the tracker system greatly, and also brings higher investment rate for the construction of PV power station. At the same time, the development of the multi-work mode con- trol technology makes the PV power station more intelligent, realizing the annual output value of RMB 1.5 billion. He represented the state authority and participated in drafting the international standards and IEC’s tracker standard documents. He is the group leader of the Task 9 and 12 in PV quality assessment team (PVQAT), focused research on the long-term stability of the solar energy and PV technologies.

He undertook the small and medium innovation enterprise innovation fund (Ministry of science and technology), Shanghai municipality science and technology project, etc. He participated in writing the scholarly books and monographs, such as Solar Photovoltaic Power Generation Technology, Solar Photovoltaic Technology and Application. He has also published papers in international conferences and professional solar energy journals.