Richard Swanson (born 1945) is an American

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and businessman, retired founder of SunPower, a

solar photovoltaic cell A photovoltaic system, also PV system or solar power system, is an electric power system designed to supply usable solar power by means of photovoltaics. It consists of an arrangement of several components, including solar panels to absorb and c ...

manufacturer.

Biography

Swanson was born in

Davenport, Iowa Davenport is a city in and the county seat of Scott County, Iowa, United States. Located along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state, it is the largest of the Quad Cities, a metropolitan area with a population of 384,324 and a ...

in 1945. He graduated in 1969 with Bachelor of Engineering and Master of Engineering degrees from Ohio State University and, in 1975, received a Doctor of Philosophy in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. He then joined the university faculty at Stanford and began research in solar cell technology. In 1985 Swanson received grants for his solar energy research from the Electric Power Research Institute and the

U.S. Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United States. ...

. That same year he founded SunPower Corporation. Swanson is credited for creating Swanson's law, an observation that solar cell prices decline by 20% for every doubling of solar panel industry capacity. The law is often compared to the better known

Moore's Law Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of physics, it is an empir ...

. While Swanson is more frequently associated with Gordon Moore because of the similarity of their eponymous "laws", the current CEO, and former colleague of Swanson's, Tom Werner has called him the "Shockley of solar", a reference to William Shockley.

Honors

In 2002, Richard was awarded the William R. Cherry award by the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

(IEEE). Additionally, Swanson received the

Becquerel Prize The Becquerel Prize is a prize to honour scientific, technical or managerial merits in the field of photovoltaic solar energy. It has been established in 1989 by the European Commission at the occasion of the 150th anniversary of a groundbreaking ex ...

in Photovoltaics from the

European Communities The European Communities (EC) were three international organizations that were governed by the same set of institutions. These were the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom), and the ...

in 2006. He was elected a

Fellow of the IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

in 2008 and has been a member of the National Academy of Engineering since 2009.

References

External links

Richard Swanson
at

1945 births Living people American electrical engineers Ohio State University alumni Stanford University alumni Scientists from Davenport, Iowa {{US-electrical-engineer-stub