U.S. DOE investing US$7 million in PV Solar Incubator
Program with four California companies
Feb 26, 2011 - Syanne Olson - pv-tech.org
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has been steadily
working for the promotion of solar energy in the
U.S. and recently announced its newest solar promotion,
the SunShot initiative, which aims to reduce the
total cost of PV solar energy systems by 75% in
order to be more cost competitive. The announcement
of its new initiative was followed by news of a
US$20.3 million investment in technologies that
aim to improve the country’s solar manufacturing
industry, its efficiency and costs.
To further promote the DOE’s commitment towards
improvement of the solar industry in the United States,
the agency has released a new US$7 million investment
in the latest round of its PV Solar Incubator Program.
The program sees the DOE help the development and
commercialization of promising emerging solar technologies
by curbing the timeline from pre-commercial and prototype
stage PV technologies to pilot and full-scale manufacturing
operations.
This is the fourth investment the DOE has made in
the PV Solar Incubator Program and, in this latest
round, picked four California-based companies in
one of two categories. Companies chosen in the Tier
I category support the development of commercially-viable
technology prototypes and will receive US$1 million
over a one-year period. The company in the Tier II
category will receive up to US$4 million over 18
months to develop and expand its pilot stage manufacturing
process.
Tier I project recipients include:
Caelux: this Pasadena-based company is developing
a flexible solar cell manufacturing process and design
that is said to reduce the amount of semiconducting
material used, which holds the potential to improve
the device efficiency while also reducing production
costs.
Solexant: currently Solexant is working on a new
thin-film material from substances that are not only
non-toxic, but also not denoted as “rare”.
The devices will be built with a nanoparticle ink
that can be printed and produce commercially-feasible
efficiencies with scalable, low-cost processes.
Stion: based out of San Jose, Stion is working on
a thin-film technology that allows two high-efficiency
thin-film solar devices to be stacked. The company
notes that this would lead to better absorption of
light and power generation since the device is built
in such a way that it decreases cost, simplifies
manufacturing and lessens materials utilization when
compared to more common designs.
The Tier II project was solely awarded to Crystal
Solar who is cultivating a new technology for the
fabrication, handling, processing and packing of
thin single-crystal silicon wafers. The wafers are
said to be four times thinner than standard cells
and allow for the use of less silicon thereby reducing
the wafer processing steps that can become not only
expensive, but wasteful.
Funding for the projects is subject to negotiation
and is to be issued through the DOE’s National
Renewable Energy Laboratory.
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