Courses & Events
Solar Panelist Bio and Abstract
Thursday, Oct 21, 2010
04:15 pm - 05:30 pm
Much of the
current infrastructure investment in renewable energy in
major Asia economies is going to wind power, but solar
power and related technologies are receiving a relatively
larger share of venture capital investments. This situation
suggest that solar businesses and markets may be poised
for especially rapid growth in a few years. Our panel
discusses the current conditions and prospects for solar
businesses, technologies and markets, with focus on
China and India. Some specific topics will include the
relatively small size of the market for solar cells in China
at present (in comparison to the rapid growth of Chinese
solar cell makers) and the Indian government’s National
Solar Mission.
Mr. Stefan Kratz is currently on sabbatical leave from Q-Cells SE
as a Sloan Fellow (Class of 2011) at the Stanford Graduate
School of Business. Before coming to Stanford in August 2010,
Stefan was the Managing Director, China for Q-Cells SE, a global
company headquartered in Thalheim, Germany, specialized in the
research, development and production of solar cells, modules,
systems and solutions. Q-Cells SE is one of the largest producers
of solar cells in the world, with currently 1.1 GWp capacity and
an expected production of 850-900 MWp in 2010. Stefan has
lived and worked in China since 2000. Prior to joining Q-Cells in
2007, he was active in environmental protection and poverty
alleviation work as Director of Operations for The Nature
Conservancy China Program and Vice-President of Operations
for Surmang Foundation. Mr. Kratz received his Master’s degree
in Political Science from Freie Universität Berlin and his Bachelor’s
degree in Environmental Sciences and Policy from Duke University,
North Carolina.
Dr. S. Rao Peddada is the co-founder of Surya Power Inc, a Silicon
Valley based technology company focused on PV technology.
Founded in 2007, Surya Power has extensive product and technology
expertise in Thin Film technology including several patent filings.
The company is currently developing solar projects in India as an
Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) company and is
seeking to install and operate several MW worth projects over the
next few years. Rao has 20 years of engineering, product development
and operations experience in semiconductor, fiber optics and PV
technologies. He started his career at Intel, where he developed
chip-substrate interconnect technologies and transferred them to
high volume manufacturing sites across the globe. Rao was part of
the team that developed and deployed the first ever “flip chip on
organic substrates”. After 9 years at Intel, Rao co-founded a fiber
optics start-up later acquired by JDS Uniphase, where he became
head of operations responsible for product development and high
volume manufacturing of highly integrated ROADM (Re-configurable
Optical Add Drop Multiplexers) and Array Wave Guide (AWG) modules.
Rao also worked briefly at Cisco as the Global Supply Chain Manager
for 10Gb/s transceivers modules. Rao has a Ph.D. in Materials Science
from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelor’s
degree in Metallurgical Engineering from Institute of Technology,
BHU, Varanasi, India.
