Synopsis
of
Report

The Committee finds that a Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) can make a major contribution to a national solar-energy program in three roles-improving our technical and analytical tools for the solar energy and related fields; providing sound assessments of status and options for solarenergy policy; and facilitating by collaborative, educational, and supporting activities the widespread introduction of solar energy when it is economically sound.

(Chapters 1 and 2)

SERI activities should not displace work being done or to be done in industry, universities, or other research institutions, in those areas where the latter can do an equally good job. (page 9)

The Committee recommends that there be a single SERI, with a number of small field stations specializing in and located optimally for the exploitation of individual solar resources (solar thermal-electric, wind energy, ocean thermal gradient, and the like).

(page 9)

The SERI structure should build over about a 3-year period to a total population of some 630 professional people (including scientists, engineers, economists, and lawyers) in a total laboratory population of some 1430. The SERI annual operating budget may be some $48 million. (page 15)

The report recommends that the corporate responsibility for SERI reside in a Board of Directors, 12 in number, elected by a parent body whose members in turn are a number of universities and similar institutions. The members of the Board of Directors must serve as individuals and not as representatives of any organization. They should not have interests in conflict with SERI's success or the success of ERDA solar-energy programs. SERI's purposes are national in scope; the Board should be national in origin. (page 17)

The Director of SERI should be elected by the Board of Directors, should report to the Board of Directors, and should serve at the pleasure of the Board. (page 19)

SERI should be operated under contract from ERDA to the Board of Directors. SERI should be block funded, with the SERI program negotiated between the SERI Board and Director on the one hand and the Assistant Administrator of ERDA for Solar, Geothermal, and Advanced Energy

2 ESTABLISHMENT OF A SOLAR ENERGY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Systems on the other. This ERDA Assistant Administrator should have primary responsibility within ERDA for evaluating SERI's performance and should serve as the principal point of contact for the Director of SERI.

(page 20)

The Committee recommends that SERI have a dual structure—a set of about 7 disciplinary departments of considerable permanence, led by department heads, together with some 10 to 20 projects that are created and concluded as required and that are led by project leaders. At any time, about 70 percent of the staff should be assigned to projects. Over a period of years, an individual staff member's time should be divided 70 percent in projects and 30 percent in a disciplinary department. Project leaders should report to a Deputy Director of SERI for Projects; disciplinary department heads should report to a Deputy Director of SERI for Disciplines. In addition, there should be Assistants to the Director for Analysis, for Technology Transfer, and for Personnel and Administration. In staffing SERI, quality of the staff is of the greatest importance. (page 10)

Systems analysis and policy analysis are important functions of SERI. Such activities should be carried out within SERI primarily by scientists, engineers, and other professionals who return at intervals to technical work in their disciplines or in individual SERI projects.

(page 16)

In making the maximum contribution to the ERDA solar-energy program within limited SERI resources, SERI must be able to work as needed from basic research on the one hand to manufacturing research and technology transfer on the other. Mission-oriented agencies in general, and ERDA in particular, as a matter of logic, efficiency, and national policy, should perform and support basic research relevant to their missions, which otherwise would not be funded to the optimum level by the other mechanisms of society-NSF, industry, and the like.

(page 8)

Among the most important considerations in choosing the location for SERI are transportation and communication, desirability for personnel and families, and mutually beneficial interaction for SERI when it is in full operation. The amount and reliability of sunlight is not a primary concern in choosing a site for SERI, although it is of leading importance in the choice of location for a SERI field station. (Chapter 5)

Individual SERI field stations should be optimally sited with respect to the particular solarenergy resource to which a station is dedicated. The stations should be small and dependent on a cooperative local technical organization for their admistrative support.

(page 24)

ERDA should proceed with parallel negotiations for the management of SERI on the one hand and the selection of a location for SERI on the other. Existing ERDA or other government laboratories should be neither excluded nor favored as locations for a new, separately organized and managed, contract-operated SERI.

(pages 22 and 26)

1

Introduction

The Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) is to be established by the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) to carry out the mandate of the Congress expressed in Section 10 of Public Law 93-473. This specific action and the entire law appear to reflect a public assessment of the importance of solar energy as a nonpolluting, enduring source of energy and a Congressional desire for activity in solar energy comparable with that which the nation has supported for the last 25 years in nuclear energy.

We conclude that SERI will indeed fill an urgent need for a central intellectual and technical resource on all phases of solar energy. As such, the Institute must take the initiative to establish openly the program for its own activities in energy research and development and to provide a sound but imaginative view of the entire solar-energy field. In conducting this program, in collaboration with industry, government, universities, and other participants in the national scene, SERI can make a major contribution to the early, efficient, and economic exploitation of solar energy.

But the role of SERI goes beyond its own direct contributions to the advancement of solarenergy technology. The technical and economic assessment of solar energy and competing technologies, which must be made by SERI to guide its own choice of programs, can serve as a basis for policy decisions by ERDA in ERDA's larger role in solar and other energy fields. These assessments can also provide a sound basis for decision by industry. An adequate foundation for decisions regarding solar energy requires more than the assessment of solar energy alone; it must combine technical, economic, sociological, and environmental analyses of changing energy resources and societal demands, including the need for commodities whose manufacture requires much energy.

Thus, this broad role of assessment and analysis is essential not only for efficient utilization of the resources represented by SERI but also for support of the national program in solar energy. The Committee considers it urgent to establish within SERI this technically based analytical and assessment function.

The Committee considered whether the benefits expected from SERI could be obtained by some combination of existing or new programs within ERDA national laboratories, universities, and industry. Our conclusion, taking into account the views expressed by the visiting experts to the summer workshop, was negative. The solar-energy program needs an institution combining

4

ESTABLISHMENT OF A SOLAR ENERGY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

analysis with experimental science and engineering, focused entirely upon solar energy (and its proper place among alternative energy sources). ERDA labs, universities, and industry play an important role in the solar-energy program. They will probably play an expanding role, as ERDA taps the reservoirs of special knowledge and facilities available in these organizations.

Taking into account the last quarter century of experience with research and development, demonstration, and policy determination in technical fields, the Committee defines here an instrument appropriate to the urgent but continuing task of

1. Improving our technical and analytical tools for solar energy and related fields;

2. Providing sound assessments of status and options for policy for solar energy;

3. Facilitating in a collaborative, educational, and supportive role the widespread introduction of commercially attractive and environmentally acceptable solar-energy sources.

In SERI, we have sought to describe an institution in which the three goals—making unique technical contributions, identifying and evaluating options to provide a basis for policy determinations, and facilitating deployment of solar energy-mutually support and reinforce one another. We believe that SERI as here defined can represent a new model for harnessing science, technology, and analysis in the service of the nation.