photovoltaic technology

At Applied Materials we love trying new things, so to celebrate the Summer Solstice, I spent the day yesterday, answering questions about solar energy and photovoltaics on Reddit, one of the world’s biggest and most vibrant online communities.During the day-long, live “Ask Me Anything” question and answer session, I received nearly 1,000 comments and questions, ranging from topics like how to get a job in renewable energy to nuclear versus solar! I had a great time discussing my passion and life’s work, and answered as many questions as I could throughout the day.If you have a moment, spend some time reading through the questions the community asked and the responses provided, but to save you some time, listed in this post are the ten best questions, as voted by the Reddit community.

Summer solstice, the day of the year with the most sunlight, is significant to our team here at Applied Materials. Today we released the results of our third annual solar energy survey and we discovered that although still in the minority, a significant amount of American consumers would consider installing solar panels on their homes. Specifically, more than a quarter (27%) of Americans would consider installing solar panels on their home. The biggest motivator appears to be cost-related as 65% would be motivated by government incentives to help offset installation costs and 54% would be motivated by the increase in the home’s value.

Applied Materials has sponsored the 2009 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, but is also lending its technical and monetary support to two California schools that teamed together for this year’s contest, Santa Clara University and the California College of the Arts. Their entry, Refract House, is a “zero-energy” house that will compete in a number of challenges on the National Mall in October.