Competitive energy
Alumnus Deko Devins is on a mission to make solar power more widespread, affordable and accessible
Before the 2017 conference track and field championships, Deko Devins had the word “compete” tattooed on his left shoulder. He went on to win the conference and NCAA Division III championships in both indoor and outdoor men’s 800 meters, setting a program record that holds today.
Devins no longer runs, but he’s never stopped competing. At 29, he leads St. Louis–based Azimuth Energy, making his way from intern to president in seven years.
“I love the grind of competition — that drive to be better, to learn more, to do more,” says Devins, BS ’17. “You see that same spirit in the solar industry. We’ve gone from, ‘How do we convince people that solar is a proven technology and better than fossil fuels?’ to ‘How do we deploy solar as fast as possible?’ We are in a race to solve this problem.”
For Devins, solar energy is more than a weapon against climate change. It’s a tool to help the world’s most vulnerable people. He arrived at WashU in 2013 determined to find ways to make solar affordable and accessible. Back then, solar energy accounted for a mere one-quarter of 1% of the energy produced in this country.
“Solar once looked terrible financially, but from a material sciences perspective, it was clear that the cost of solar was going down, while the efficiency was going up,” Devins says. “By the time I graduated, solar cost less than grid energy produced from fossil fuels. The timing couldn’t have been better.”
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