[Editors] MIT, Chesonis Foundation Announce Solar Revolution

[Elizabeth Thomson]

MIT News Office
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Contact: Elizabeth Thomson, MIT News Office
t. 617.258.5402, email: thomson at mit.edu
________________________________________________________________________

MIT, Chesonis Foundation announce solar revolution
Goal: Bring the sun’s power to the people
________________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 22, 2008

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., - Promising to transform solar power from a  
“boutique” option to an affordable, dependable, mainstream energy  
solution, MIT and the Chesonis Family Foundation today launched a  
“solar revolution” with the ultimate aim of making solar energy  
America’s primary carbon-free fuel.

The Solar Revolution Project (SRP), funded by a $10 million gift from  
the Foundation, will explore new materials and systems that could  
dramatically accelerate the availability of solar energy. The SRP  
will complement and interact closely with other large solar projects  
at MIT, creating one of the largest solar energy clusters at any  
research university.

The Chesonis gift will allow MIT to explore bold approaches that are  
essential for transforming the solar industry. Specifically, it will  
focus on three elements—capture, conversion and storage—that will  
ultimately make solar power a viable, near-term energy source.

”Solar is thought of as an ultimate energy technology off in the  
distant future. The goal of SRP is to move this timeframe nearer to  
the present. The SRP will make solar a practical alternative, by  
committing a 10-year timeframe for establishing the new base of  
scientific knowledge it will take to draw a market-competitive energy  
supply from the sun,” said Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor  
of Energy and Professor of Chemistry at MIT, who will direct the SRP.  
“With SRP, think ‘solar’ and think ‘now.’ This is the revolution that  
is implied in the project name.”

Professor Ernest Moniz, director of the MIT Energy Initiative  
(MITEI), said, “Climate change makes the search for more  
environmentally benign sources of energy urgent and hugely important.  
Many experts have concluded that solar energy is a key, if not the  
key answer to our global energy challenges in the long term.

“The Chesonis investment—large, flexible, empowering of highly  
creative MIT faculty and students—embodies this conclusion,” Moniz  
continued. “We applaud the vision, generosity and confidence in MIT  
that this extraordinary gift demonstrates.”

Most solar research focuses on known materials and systems, but, thus  
far, these approaches cannot be implemented on a large scale. The SRP  
will allow researchers to explore entirely new materials and systems  
that could transform solar power into a viable, widely deployed and  
affordable source of energy.

A unique feature of the SRP is its flexibility: The gift’s  
unrestricted funding is aimed at creating a “no holds barred”  
research environment that will inspire innovations in the field.

The SRP will initially support 30 energy fellowships for students on  
a range of solar-related studies, from the development of novel  
materials for energy conversion and storage to using solar energy to  
produce hydrogen fuel from water.

Each fellowship will span five years, which allows for significant  
continuity and greater impact. The gift from the Foundation will also  
help support an integrated study on the future of solar energy,  
building on the success of two earlier MIT interdisciplinary reports  
on the future of coal and of nuclear energy in a carbon-constrained  
world.

”We are at a breakpoint, both in energy supply and environmental  
consequences. Solar energy has enormous promise as the ultimate  
answer to our energy problems,” said Arunas Chesonis, benefactor of  
the Foundation. “Solar energy is widely distributed and the fuel cost  
for solar power is zero. It is our hope that by investing in the  
people at MIT and giving them the freedom to take risks in the lab,  
we will enable them to be true game-changers—advancing the state of  
the art to a point where solar power is cheaper and more reliable  
than electricity from coal.”

The Foundation will also contribute to the MITEI Energy Seed Fund  
Program (ESFP), which solicits and funds innovative energy proposals  
from across the MIT campus. The first round of solicitations for the  
ESFP (and the related Ignition Grant program for junior faculty)  
provided close to $2 million to fund 20 outstanding proposals. The  
Chesonis gift will provide an additional $500,000 to supplement funds  
from MITEI industry partners.

Other large solar projects at MIT include the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers  
Center, the MIT-Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems, the  
Masdar Foundation solar project and a range of solar research grants  
to MIT from the U.S. Department of Energy and other federal agencies.

________________________________________________________________________

MITEI is an Institute-wide initiative designed to help transform the  
global energy system to meet the challenges of the future. In its  
first full year of operation, MITEI has attracted more than $100  
million from industry and public partners as well as private donors  
to fund critical energy research to enhance the environmental  
performance of conventional energy and enable a sustainable energy  
future through transformational technologies. The current MITEI  
program will also support more than 175 graduate energy fellows over  
the next five years to help develop the next generation of energy  
scientists, technologists and social scientists. For more  
information, please visit http://web.mit.edu/mitei/.

The Chesonis Family Foundation is a private philanthropic  
organization that

targets environmental and energy research projects. The foundation is  
working to address global climate change by supporting high-risk,  
proof-of-concept technology research and providing funding that  
allows research to move from development to commercial deployment.  
The foundation’s benefactor, Arunas Chesonis, earned a Bachelor of  
Science degree in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute  
of Technology in 1984 and is Chairman and CEO of PAETEC Holding Corp.  
(NASDAQ GS: PAET). The Chesonis Family Foundation is based in  
Cambridge, Mass.
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