The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will be investing $21.7 million in more than a dozen projects aimed at developing next generation photovoltaic (PV) technology.
The DOE says the 25 projects selected are an integral part of the President’s Solar America Initiative, which aims to make solar energy cost-competitive with conventional sources of electricity by 2015.
The funding provides early-stage investments for a range of advanced PV technologies. Developers hope the new solar technologies can produce electricity at costs well below the current costs of grid-supplied electricity. The device and manufacturing process research, which will be used by the selected projects, is expected to produce prototype cells and/or processes by 2015, with the potential for full commercialization shortly thereafter.
The projects will be implemented at 15 universities and 6 companies; each award averages $900,000 from DOE over three years. With cost-sharing, the total investment in research will be up to $30.3 million.
The following projects were selected for negotiation of three-year project awards:
Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ)(This project will seek to increase efficiency levels to 20% by developing new materials to improve tandem thin film solar cells.
Arizona State University was selected for another project, in which researchers will demonstrate the fundamental viability of replacing expensive materials used in today’s solar cells with less costly alternatives.
California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA)(This project will seek to enhance solar absorption using plasmons to improve the performance of PV cells.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA)(This project will seek to boost the performance of conventional solar cells through the addition of a new layer tuned to use a previously wasted portion of the sun’s energy.
MIT was selected for another project, in which researchers will explore a silicon wafer-making technology to set new standards of electronic quality and low cost.
Mayaterials, Inc. (Ann Arbor, MI)(This project will seek to derive solar grade silicon from agricultural by-products.
Pennsylvania State University (University Park, PA)(Penn State will seek to apply lessons learned from success with lithium ion batteries to develop dye-based sensitized solar cells with improved electrodes and electrolytes.
Penn State was selected for a second project, in which researchers will create PV devices from nanowires grown on inexpensive substrates like glass.
Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, NY)(This project will develop PV cells for solar concentrator applications using high efficiency nanostructures.
Solasta, Inc. (Newton, MA)(Solasta will seek to develop high efficiency solar power by separating the path traveled by light from the path traveled by electrons using nanostructures.
Solexant, Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA)(Solexant will seek to dramatically improve photovoltaics through inexpensive inorganic PV cell that harvest more than the conventional limit of maximum power efficiency.
Soltaix, Inc. (Los Altos, CA)(Soltaix will seek to demonstrate and optimize an ultra-high-efficiency, thin-film, crystalline solar cell for cost-effective, grid-connected electricity.
Stanford University (Stanford, CA)(Stanford will use nanowire networks or meshes to create electrodes for high efficiency, low cost solution-processed photovoltaics.
Stanford was also selected for a second project, in which researchers will produce advanced, higher efficiency thin-film solar cells from nanowires made of CIGS.
University of California, Davis (Davis, CA)(UC Davis will develop organic photovoltaics, prepared with sequential solution processing, to produce multiple-layer polymer films.
University of California, San Diego (La Jolla, CA)(This project will seek to produce high-efficiency photovoltaics that combine plasmonics and semiconductor nanostructures.
University of Colorado (Boulder, CO)(Using dye molecules to produce multiple electrons from one photon of light, researchers for this project will demonstrate an ultra-high efficiency, low cost solar cell.
University of Delaware (Newark, DE)(The project will use laser processing to control defects and improve PV cell performance to develop a highly efficient wide bandgap in thin films, which is necessary for low cost polycrystalline tandem devices.
University of Florida (Gainesville, FL)(This project will seek to create solution processible, low cost tandem photovoltaics from inorganic nanorods (aligned for efficient energy collection) surrounded by organic polymers.
University of Illinois (Urbana, IL)(This project will seek a low cost concentrator PV from automated printing and the interconnection of a large number of microcells with built-in optics.
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI)(This project will seek to demonstrate effective tandem crystalline organic photovoltaic cells.
University of South Florida (Tampa, FL)(The University will demonstrate a new flexible configuration with a high throughput process for transforming the standard process/product design of CdTe cells and modules.
University of Washington (Seattle, WA)(This project will seek to use interfacial engineering to make highly efficient polymer-based photovoltaic devices with organic/inorganic nanostructures; it also seeks to produce improved performance multilayer, solution processible organic tandem cells with additional enhancements due to interfacial engineering at the electrode.
Voxtel, Inc. (Beaverton, OR)(Voxtel will seek to go beyond conventional limits in power production in composite nanocrystal photovoltaic devices.
Wakonda Technologies (Fairport, NY)(Wakonda Technologies will seek to apply low cost conventional thin film manufacturing techniques to the production of large area, high efficiency multi-junction PV.
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