The money will primarily be funneled into hiring additional faculty to staff the facility. Stanford already spends more than $30m a year on energy research.
The new Precourt Institute for Energy will focus both on micro- and macro-issues relevant to renewable energy, from maximizing the efficiency of solar cells to finding ways of combating global warming.
One of the institute’s first focuses will be solar power, according to Lynn Orr, a Stanford professor in energy resources engineering, and the institute’s first director.
“We
