Tech Development
Hanwha Solutions announced on March 14 that it will appoint Danielle Merfeld as chief technology officer and vice president of GE Renewable Energy, as its global chief technology officer for Q CELLS.
CTO Murfeld majored in electrical engineering at the University of Notre Dame and received a Ph.D. in electrical and electronic engineering from Northwestern University. After joining GE Global Research in 1999, she led technology development in various fields including solar power, wind power, hydro power, and energy storage systems (ESS) at GE Power and GE Renewable Energy for 23 years. Prior to joining Hanwha Solutions, she orchestrated global R&D operations at GE Renewable Energy.
Merfeld will establish a global research network connecting Korea, the United States, and Germany to combine R&D capabilities and promote the creation of synergies. First of all, she plans to strengthen a technology roadmap at the companywide level by connecting R&D centers located in Pangyo, Korea, and Thalheim, Germany. Moreover, in the United States, she will start strengthening its technological capabilities in line with the full-scale operation of Solar Hub, the largest integrated solar production complex in North America.
Merfeld will oversee a research and development roadmap for perovskite-crystalline silicon tandem cells and next-generation modules, which are being studied with the goal of mass production in 2026. She is expected to speed up the implementation of tandem cell and module national projects in cooperation with small and medium-sized Korean enterprises and research institutes and give momentum to a tandem cell pilot production project in progress at the Thalheim R&D Center in Germany. In addition, Merfeld will comprehensively manage R&D plans for overall power generation facilities, including MLPE systems and inverters that optimize solar power generation performances.