I am the head of the Electrical Sustainable Energy (ESE) department at the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science at the TU Delft. I live in Delft, a historical and beautiful city, and I enjoy life in Delft and the Netherlands very much. I was born in Slovakia. Here I studied Electrical Engineering at the Technical University of Bratislava. I did my PhD research at the same university in the field of novel materials for applications in electronic devices such as solar cells. After my PhD, in 1989 I received a research fellowship at the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) where I made a fantastic career from a research fellow up to a full professor in Photovoltaic Materials and Devices.

During my academic career, I carried out research on solar cells. In the beginning, my main ambition was to discover something important that would make me a successful and famous scientist. I worked hard to enrich my knowledge and contribute to innovations. Innovations for improving the performance of solar cells so that they convert more electricity from sunlight. We call this technology photovoltaics. After years of research, I realised that solar cells were not just an exotic hobby, they could deliver practical electricity and could change the world! You can ask why solar cells can change the world. The answer is simple. Because solar energy is the largest primary energy source available to us. It is not coal, oil or gas. It is the sun that provides energy not only for keeping life on the earth but also for the needs of mankind. And now we have a small miracle, a solar cell, that converts solar energy to deliver electricity for everyone on the earth, also for people who have no access to electricity networks. Meanwhile, photovoltaics has become the technology that delivers the cheapest electricity in many parts of the world. And when you realise this, you start thinking about how solar cells can change the world. Will the world become a better place? How should we do it so that the world becomes a better place? Trying to find answers to these questions, I started to realise what my contribution could be and I translated it into my personal mission. My mission is to build an energy system of the future, which will provide green solar electricity to everyone in the world. 

The activities of the ESE department focus on the acceleration of the energy transition towards sustainable energy. For me, as a lecturer, the core of the subject that I discuss with students must be crystal clear. I consider the core of the energy transition a significant change in the mix of primary energy sources. In other words, the core is to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources such as solar energy and wind energy. This change has huge implications for the energy system, and the electrical part of it in particular. The energy transition brings both challenges and a lot of new opportunities. Today’s energy system is already very complex and with the integration of renewable energy sources, it will become even more complex. It has to accommodate new technologies and components for the generation and storage of electricity, technologies for information and communication and models for markets and control without compromising the performance and security of the energy supply of the existing system. We do not tackle the challenges of the energy transition alone. We work together with experts from other universities and research centres, companies and public organizations. But the most important part of this adventure is you. Young, motivated, talented, and creative students who have the ambition to change the world of the energy sector. You can become experts who will realize this challenging task of energy transition in the future. 

The contribution of our ESE department to the energy transition is in three directions; research, education, and valorisation. Research for obtaining new knowledge about materials, processes and devices that are needed for the future energy system. Valorisation of knowledge for bringing innovations into new technologies and products to support emerging business opportunities. Education for delivering excellent engineers and future leaders who can make a difference with their knowledge. For this purpose, we put a lot of effort in the previous years to develop several new courses that cover the whole chain of processing electrical energy. Production of electricity from renewable energy sources using photovoltaic technology, processing of green electricity using power electronics, design and control of new parts of electricity networks with storage, the so-called local decentralized microgrids, and design, operation and control of an intelligent energy system of the future with integrated networks of electricity, gas and heat. In the courses, we explain not only how the processes and devices work but we introduce scenarios for future energy systems. It is this part of our courses that will give you, our students, the advantage to find an attractive and interesting job.

Providing reliable, affordable and sustainable energy to everybody is an enormous challenge. With us, you can be a part of it and make it happen.