US: $6 Million For Early-Stage Solar Research

• DOE has selected a number of organizations from within the US to support their solar energy research and development
• Among the PV segment, it has picked projects from 10 organizations with most of them being universities
• DOE says the PV projects supported are aimed at improving power conversion efficiency, energy output, reuse and recycle processes, service lifetime and manufacturability of PV technologies

The Department of Energy (DOE) in the US has announced a funding of $6 million for a slew of solar energy research and development projects for both solar PV and concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) under Small Innovative Projects in Solar (SIPS) 2022 Funding Program.

It describes SIPS as an ongoing Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) program that has been around since 2015. Of the total number recipients, 10 belong to solar PV category and are aimed at improving power conversion efficiency, energy output, reuse and recycle processes, service lifetime and manufacturability of PV technologies.

"These projects, representing 13 different US states, will support President Biden's goal of addressing the climate crisis by driving innovation and speeding clean energy deployment to achieve a carbon-free electricity sector by 2035 and net-zero emissions energy sector by 2050," stated DOE.

Among PV projects selected, Argonne National Laboratory has secured $300,000 award to develop tools to accurately analyze and predict long-term reliability of solar PV modules in different climates and stress conditions. Similarly, Case Western Reserve University will use similar funding amount to develop a process that can rapidly predict the performance and durability of new materials for silicon cells.

University of Alabama is conducting research into enabling high-speed printing of perovskite solar cells using newly modified perovskite material. The team will target to produce mini-modules with power conversion efficiencies of over 20% replacing organic molecules with inorganic elements.

On the other hand, University of Hawaii at Manoa will explore monolithic encapsulation of perovskite solar cells with transparent conductive composites.

University of Delaware is working on silicon heterojunction (HJT) solar PV module passivation. High efficiency recycled silicon solar cells is the subject of research for the University of Virginia. Uriel Solar will investigate single-crystal cadmium telluride (CdTe) on silicon to enable future PV devices.

Details of all the winners and the winning projects are available on DOE website.