Solar electricity is now “the cheapest energy in history. Cheaper than coal, oil or gas energy. This is the remarkable change that’s happened in the past five years,” says Andrew Blakers, one of a small team of research engineers that has been instrumental in bringing about this transformation. In recognition of his work in developing the PERC (passivated emitter and rear cell) solar photovoltaic energy cell, he and three of his colleagues at the Australian National University (ANU) have been awarded the 2023 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. As one of the judges on this year’s QEPrize said of the victorious PERC technology: “The winners this year stood out because of the importance of proving that we can produce solar voltaic cells that can meet the energy demands of the future. They showed it can be done.”
Awarded for ground-breaking innovations that have been of ‘global benefit to humanity’, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering is arguably...