Wyatt Stoute, a freshman in the College of Engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, appears on the cover of the Spring 2024 issue of La Louisiane magazine. He works as a student researcher with Dr. Terrence Chambers at the Louisiana Solar Energy Lab. From the nerve center of the 1.1 megawatt facility at University Research Park, he shared with La Louisiane how he became interested in energy research and what it’s like to work with leading researchers at the 4,200-panel solar field helping to power the UL Lafayette campus.
How does it feel knowing you are on the cover of La Louisiane magazine?
It feels great! I'm glad to be a part of the research here [at the Louisiana Solar Energy Lab]. I'm glad that it's getting put out there. I hope we get more people to come and visit. We accept tours any time of day. Anytime you show up, we get out there. I hope more people learn about solar.
Can you explain what you were doing in the cover photo?
We call it the light-soaking chamber. The intent of it is to basically provide an amount of light that we can correlate to the amount of light the sun will give, to test the solar panels' efficiency and power-production ratings. Under different circumstances, we can control our temperature, we can control our light, we can control humidity — whatever we're trying to see. We can also use it for degradation because solar panels degrade faster under high heat and high light.
So this would be like an artificial sun?
Yes, that’s it. It's quite literally a box full of light bulbs that we turn on. It can get about two times stronger than the intensity of the sun.
What has your research experience been like?
So for me, personally, I work a lot with our graduate students. I help them with their projects. Basically, every time they need help designing and picking a choice: “Should I do this? Or this? Or why is this not working?”
I'm currently trying to get one of our solar simulation machines working. We use those to test the efficiency and how resilient the panels are after they've degraded and had damage, and so that's where my specific research is.
How did you become interested in this work?
The University offers jobs to some top students based on their ACT, so I got a job through that. I asked specifically for Dr. Chambers, because I heard he was doing some great stuff out here. I’m an energy guy. Solar energy is one form of energy. We don't just do solar electric, we also do solar thermal, and we're going to get into hydrogen, so it was just the perfect place for me.
Any idea of what you want to do when you graduate?
I already know I want to go to grad school. I probably want to go all the way to get a Ph.D., and I want to probably continue research and work at a university and teach.
Read more: Dr. Terrence Chambers shines as international force in solar energy
Photo caption: Dr. Terrence Chambers and student researcher Wyatt Stoute stand in front of a light-soaking chamber at the Louisiana Solar Energy Lab. Photo credit: Doug Dugas / University of Louisiana at Lafayette
