Chris Thompson

Chris Thompson has 16 years experience working in photovoltaics. His work includes overseeing Core Energy Works preventative maintenance and service program, field and warehouse inspections of modules and arrays for quality assurance inspections, and hail impact testing and evaluation of solar modules. Mr. Thompson has worked on a wide array of topics and applications, including device physics of thin-film photovoltaic devices and modules, reliability testing, laser processing of silicon heterojunction devices, novel doping methods for CdTe solar cells, and the effects of hail impact on solar modules. Mr. Thompson worked at the University of Delaware’s Institute of Energy Conversion for 12 years before joining Core Energy Works.

Research and Professional Experiences

Senior Project Engineer
2019-PRESENT
Core Energy Works, Newark, Delaware
Leads a team that provides preventative maintenance and service of 80MW of utility scale solar across 13 sites. Field and laboratory testing of solar modules. Conducts QA inspections in laboratory, warehouse, and field settings. Developed a unique method to study the effects of hail energy, cell architecture, glass thickness, and module design on cell cracking and module failure from hail impacts.

Research Associate
2009 – 2019
Institute of Energy Conversion, University of Delaware
Conducted a wide range of research over ten years in the world’s oldest continually operating photovoltaic research laboratory. Research interests included device and degradation physics of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells; laser processing of silicon heterojunction solar cells; novel doping methods for CdTe solar cells; hardware in-the-loop cyber security testing of smart-grid enabled inverters; device characterization and simulation of photovoltaic devices. Over thirty publications and presentations. Built hardware-in-the-loop cyber-security laboratory, and wrote code to control AC grid emulators, DC power supply inputs for inverters, and control server to allow laboratory to be integrated into outside simulations by partner groups. Developed specialized software for high-throughput analysis of IV curves that corrects for the effect of temperature, parasitic resistive losses, photo-carrier collection losses, and irradiance levels for detailed power loss analysis of solar cells. Maintained a wide suit of device characterization laboratories including equipment maintenance, calibration, and training of laboratory users.

Activities

• Over twenty publications and presentations, including Nature Scientific Reports, Journal of Applied Physics, and IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics.
• Community outreach including K-12 STEM training through the University of Delaware College of Earth, Ocean, & Environment and Green Beret Project for a student photovoltaic exploration at the University of Delaware Institute of Energy Conversion.
• Presenter at the Materials Research Society Young Scientist tutorial.
• Active peer review for a number of photovoltaic journals.

Education

M.E. Electrical Engineering, University of Delaware, 2008
B.S. Electrical Engineering, University of Delaware, 2006