SOLARUNITED Quality WG 1 Committee Members
CO-CHAIR
Laura Azpilicueta, Sr. VP – Global Sales & Business Development
Sales and management executive with a record of success driving revenue and business growth for leading global manufacturing firms in the solar industry. Throughout her progressive career, she has earned a top reputation for designing strategies to secure customer interest and loyalty while expanding sales channels through relationship building and communication of product value.
In her current role as Sr. VP – Global Sales & Business Development for EVASA, Laura is in charge of expanding the company’s presence in new countries. Prior to EVASA, Laura spent four years as European Sales Manager for Madico Inc., where she began building her knowledge of solar products.
She holds a BSc Industrial Engineering from UPC University, Barcelona- Spain and has completed several prestigious training programs in the U.S. and London.
CO-CHAIR
Azmat Siddiqi, Sr. Technical Advisor at Stalwart Power
Azmat Siddiqi is currently a Sr. Technical Advisor at Stalwart Power, a start-up that is aiming to fundamentally change the economics and implementation of PV and energy storage by exploiting transformational technologies for inverters, batteries and energy management systems.
Prior to Stalwart, he was the SVP Quality & Reliability and Sr. Technical Advisor at First Solar, he was responsible for technology readiness of First Solar’s portfolio, covering all aspects of end-to-end execution and process improvement across the value chain of over 13.5GW of modules.
Before FSLR, he was Director of Engineering at Northrop Grumman, with responsibility for directorates of Situational Awareness, Navigation, and Guidance. The team efforts ensured that National defense critical mission were executed on-time, on target, effectively and efficiently. Prior to NGC, Azmat spent over 15 years in semiconductor industry as Sr, Director Eng. & Tech, reliability, and Corp. VP quality at Applied and Nanometrics. He holds a MS in Industrial & Systems Eng. From Univ. of Fla. and did post grad. work at Stanford Univ. in Laser Engr.
Azmat is married with 2 daughters and lives in San Francisco, California
Govindarajan (Govind) Ramu, Senior Director, Global Quality Management Systems, Sunpower
Having responsibility for SunPower’s Prevention-Simplification-Customer Satisfaction (PSC) initiative and global quality management systems, Ramu has come to think of the importance of quality in terms of an analogy: “Quality is to product as grammar is to language,” he says. The PSC initiative encompasses design excellence and preventive systems, process simplification and standardization.
Prior to this role, Ramu was senior quality manager and a Six Sigma Master Black Belt for JDS Uniphase Corporation, a worldwide leader in optical technology headquartered in Milipitas, California. As part of his duties at JDS Uniphase, Ramu supported DFx (Design for eXcellence) efforts and integration of a lean Six Sigma approach with various new product introductions. The importance of Six Sigma, he says, is that it enables more systematic and disciplined handling of business processes. As a result, process performance improvement and predictability increase.
Lucie Garreau-iles, EMEA Technical program manager for PV and industrial applications of Tedlar(r) at DuPont
Originally a colloid scientist by training, I fell in PV in 2009 when I started developing prototype panels in our laboratory in Gen
eva. I deconstructed a tradition panel removing each layer to try and understand the impact of accelerated aging on each layer. Once I gathered some understanding, I started re-constructing weird and wonderful panels with a very wide range of materials, made lots of mistakes, melted a few EVAs down the damp heat chamber and corroded a few solder ribbon til there was none left… Made one full size panel at 5Kg in weight (my secret recipe).
Then I was kicked out of the lab in 2013 to investigate what was happening in the field where I (along with 2 other colleagues) painstakingly gathered defect statistics. We now have stats on nearly 2 000 000 panels around the world from the US to Europe, the Middle East and China. I had fun analysing our finding. I have been working with partners down the value chain, investors, insurers, EPCs, O&M companies to spread the good word about the impact of quality on durability… And guess what, it is exactly as expected!
ir François Rummens, Quality Research and Technical Support Department Manager, RENOLIT , Belgium NV
Ir. François Rummens received his Civil Engineering Degree in Materials Science from the University of Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium in 1987.
Along his career as polymer scientist, he has developed a strong expertise in the field of durability of a.o. TPO waterproofing membranes. The service life of such polymeric material is typically at least 25 years, directly submitted to UV light, high humidity, heat and thermal cycles.
After analysis of the structure and specific requirements of PV modules, he has developed, tested and patented new concepts of backsheets, benefitting from his durability expertise.
Dr. Nabih Cherradi, Chief Technology Officer, Desert Technologies
Dr. Nabih Cherradi is Desert Technologies’ Chief Technology Officer. Has spent over 28 years building on a long track record of equipment’s/production lines as well as business development in the semiconductor and photovoltaic industries. Prior to joining Desert Technologies, Nabih was CEO of EmpowerSun, a Swiss based photovoltaic energy consultancy, which he founded in 2009.
In the meantime, he also co-founded ISWT a French solar developer company. From 2007-2009, as a Vice President/CTO, he accompanied Yingli Green Energy in its fast expansion with responsibility for the technology and manufacturing. He also participated in its IPO in New York (NYSE). As operations & process director at Applied Materials from 1997 to 2007 Nabih was responsible for installing turn-key semiconductor and photovoltaic production lines throughout the world, installing multiple GWs of production capacity across a ten year period.
He holds a PhD on materials sciences from the University Henri Poincaré, Nancy as well as an MBA, from the Business School of Nancy, (France).
Ulrike Jahn, Project Manager, R&D Projects, TÜV Rheinland Energy GmbH
Ulrike Jahn graduated in physics and leads various research and development projects in the business area of solar energy of the TÜV Rheinland Group in Cologne, Germany. Her work focuses on characterizing PV module technologies and on PV system performance analysis. She is a project manager of an international expert group examining PV system performance and module reliability of the PVPS programme of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
René Moerman, CEO & Founder, Xilia Ltd.
René Moerman is an experienced solar specialist with a passion for sustainability. He gained his experience by working for the Rabobank, Generali and different insurance companies.
Till May 2014 he was Chief Strategy, co-founder and still major shareholder of Solarif. A company which insure PV power plants all over the world.
