Dr. Roger Messenger

Designer, Sun Electronics UPSUI Systems

Roger Messenger is a Professor Emeritus, a Registered Professional Engineer, and a Certified Electrical Contractor. He enjoys working on a field installation as much as he enjoys teaching a class, designing a PV system, or contemplating the theory of operation of a system. Recently, Dr. Messenger has been actively involved with the Florida Solar Energy Center in the development of courses, exams and study guides for voluntary certification of PV installers worldwide. He is also a consultant to Sun Electronics, for which he designs battery backup grid-connected PV systems.

With co-author Jerry Ventre, Dr. Messenger published Photovoltaic Systems Engineering in 1999. The two published the second edition of the book in 2003. Dr. Messenger has also contributed chapters on Photovoltaics (PV) to four handbooks. Recently, he designed and supervised the installation of four utility-interactive PV systems with battery backup. In the picture at right, he (in the red shirt) is explaining to journalists how a SunElectronics' UPSUI system works. The installation pictured was the first-ever residential grid-connected PV system to be installed in Boca Raton, Florida.

Dr. Messenger served as a professor of Electrical Engineering at Florida Atlantic University for 37 years, including 11 years of administrative duties as Department Chair, Associate Dean and Director of the FAU Center for Energy Conservation. Each year from 1997 to 2006, Dr. Messenger developed and taught a senior elective course on PV Power Systems. Dr. Messenger is an award-winning professor, during his service earning three university-wide awards for teaching, the FAU Alumni Association Degree of Difference Award, and the FAU President’s Leadership Award.

In addition to his work in the area of photovoltaics, Dr. Messenger worked on the development and promulgation of the original Code for Energy Efficiency in Building Construction in Florida. He has conducted extensive field studies of energy consumption and conservation in buildings and swimming pools. His research work has also included a range of engineering topics from electrical noise in gas discharge tubes to deep impurities in silicon.

Dr. Messenger earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota.