University Park, Pa. -- Christopher Cook, solar energy leader and former SunEdison partner, will visit Penn State to present “Solar Energy Economics” at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 29, in 309 Walker Building on Penn State’s University Park campus. This lecture is free and open to the public.
Cook will present the hard facts of solar energy economics and how innovative financial strategies can make solar energy a viable and secure energy source today and in the future. He is considered by many to be the leading national expert on net metering -- the economic arrangement by which a customer generating their own power is compensated by their local utility.
“We’re thrilled to have Christopher Cook here, to share his experience with the Penn State community,” said David Riley, executive director of Penn State’s Center for Sustainability. “He is one of the best-informed professionals on how financial innovations can advance solar energy deployment in the United States.”
Cook is the principal in the startup Solar Grid Storage LLC, and counsel to the law firm of Keyes & Fox. His is also a principal with E3 Energy Services, an energy policy consulting firm. Previously, Cook was a managing director of Sunworks, a startup company focused on building US based solar PV manufacturing facilities to support utility and large scale solar deployment.
Earlier in his career, while a partner at Sun Edison, Cook worked with policy makers and electric utilities to create new solar energy programs. He helped write one of the earliest solar power purchase agreements (PPA), which has become the model contract for the solar industry. Cook’s team helped establish programs in most of the leading solar states in the U.S.
Cook’s lecture is sponsored by the Penn State Center for Sustainability.
For more information, please visit http://www.cfs.psu.edu/news/details.aspx?ArticleID=3b357facfa2d4b3688378e1c4.