Professor Andrew Blakers

Professor Andrew Blakers landscape

Andrew Blakers is Professor of Engineering at the Australian National University. In the 1980s he engaged in design and fabrication of silicon solar cells with world record efficiencies. He was a lead developer of the PERC silicon solar cell, which has most of the global solar market and is mitigating 1-2% of global greenhouse gas emissions through displacement of coal.

He was a lead developer of Sliver solar cell technology, the subject of a large commercialisation effort by Transform Solar. He engages in analysis of pathways to a 100% renewable energy future, which can mitigate about 80% of global greenhouse emissions.

His team identified vast energy storage potential to support variable solar and wind generation through a global atlas of 600,000 sites for off-the-shelf Gigawatt-scale pumped hydro storage.

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The 2023 QEPrize is awarded to Professor Martin Green, Professor Andrew Blakers, Dr Aihua Wang & Dr Jianhua Zhao

The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering has been awarded for the invention and development of Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC) solar photovoltaic technology.