The U.S. Department of Energy selected 19 projects (9 in CSP, 10 in PV), with a total funding of $6 million, that will pursue innovative, targeted, early-stage ideas in solar energy research and development. The projects were selected through the Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) Small Innovative Projects in Solar (SIPS) 2022 Funding Program. SIPS projects focus on novel, high-risk, or high impact ideas that can produce significant results within the first year of performance, quickly validating new concepts and laying the foundation for continued research. SIPS is an ongoing SETO program that has funded more than 100 projects since it began in 2015.
The SIPS program is also designed to increase the diversity of clean energy researchers by streamlining the application process and encouraging applications from researchers who have never applied or been selected for a SETO award. Of the 19 recipients, 15 are first-time lead researchers on a SETO-funded project.
“Bringing new researchers into the DOE ecosystem with their bold, innovative ideas is an incredibly fruitful way to advance our work in clean energy, and break through incremental improvements” said Kelly Speakes-Backman, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. “I can’t wait to see the knowledge and technological advances that will grow out of these new solar projects.”
Projects were awarded in two solar energy research areas: PV and concentrating solar-thermal power (see CSP winners here). PV projects will improve power conversion efficiency, energy output, reuse and recycling processes, service lifetime, and manufacturability of PV technologies. The following organizations were selected to receive PV SIPS awards:
Arizona State University (Tempe, Arizona)
Project Name: Planar Transformer Systems for Modular Power Electronics in Long-haul, Low-cost PV Systems
DOE Award Amount: $300,000
Project Summary: This project team will design new power electronic converters for connecting solar PV systems to the grid that are modular and redundant. The new converters will be smaller than current devices, easily repaired and upgraded, and made using methods and materials that are less sensitive to supply chain changes. This will support longer operational lifetimes while maintaining high performance in PV systems.
Argonne National Laboratory (Lemont, Illinois)
Project Name: Solar-Leap: A Democratized Tool to Manage Long-Term Impact of Environmental and Operational Conditions on Asset Performance Degradation
DOE Award Amount: $300,000
Project Summary: This project will develop tools to accurately analyze and predict the long-term reliability of PV modules in different extreme climates and related stress conditions. Current tools only use small data sets or laboratory-based experiments, which can be less accurate in predicting real-world, long-term PV module performance. The new tools developed by the project team will use sensor data and maintenance records from an extensive fleet of PV modules to more accurately determine the effects of field conditions and develop strategies to mitigate these negative effects. The team will work closely with PV industry members–with a specific focus on minority-owned businesses and companies in under-resourced communities–to gather feedback and demonstrate the impact of the tool on the operations and maintenance of their PV assets.
Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio)
Project Name: Accelerating Cycles of Learning of Advanced Silicon Architectures: Cell Processing Approaches and their Effect on Degradation Mechanisms
DOE Award Amount: $300,000
Project Summary: This project will develop a process that can rapidly predict the performance and durability of new materials for silicon p-type cells without having to fully optimize the new device first. This will save research time and effort by identifying which new silicon PV cell designs have the best potential to achieve both high efficiency and long operational lifetimes. The process will examine a wide spectrum of factors that could affect the device performance–from stability of the silicon material itself to accelerated aging tests of the module components in different climates–to develop these predictions.
University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, Alabama)
Project Name: Precursor Engineering of All-Inorganic Perovskite Absorber and Rapid Photonic Annealing for Large-Area Highly Stable Perovskite Solar Modules
DOE Award Amount: $300,000
Project Summary: This project will enable high-speed printing of perovskite solar cells using a newly modified perovskite material and innovative processing techniques. This method will help overcome current barriers to perovskite cell manufacturing, such as instability and long processing times. The team will use a perovskite material where the organic molecules are replaced with inorganic elements to increase its stability, and pair this with outer layers made of metal oxide materials to provide physical protection and improve transfer of electricity out of the module. These will then be used to make modules from a liquid solution through a process called slot-die coating, which can be scaled up for use in a high-speed manufacturing line. The team will aim to make mini-modules with power conversion efficiencies above 20%. This combination of new materials and techniques have the potential to provide low-cost, stable perovskite photovoltaic modules.
University of Arizona (Tucson, Arizona)
Project Name: Advanced Perovskite Solar Cell Development and Stability Using In-Line Electrochemical Methodologies
DOE Award Amount: $300,000
Project Summary: This project will develop an instrument to test for defects or degradation in perovskite photovoltaic cells that can be integrated into a high-throughput manufacturing line. This will provide a low-cost, highly scalable method to understand the impact of different materials and manufacturing methods on the stability of perovskite PV cells and enable expanded perovskite PV manufacturing.
University of Connecticut (Storrs, Connecticut)
Project Name: Performance Assessment of PV Panels Using Impedance Spectroscopy
DOE Award Amount: $300,000
Project Summary: This project will develop a tool that can analyze PV modules while in operation. The tool will measure how the power output and lifetime of the PV modules is affected by different intensities of light, materials-level characteristics like defects, impurities, and mechanical properties, and module-level characteristics like electrical connectors.
University of Delaware (Newark, Delaware)
Project Name: In-situ Hydrogen Microstructural Characterization of Silicon Heterojunction Passivation: Addressing Open Circuit Voltage Degradation and Mitigation Pathways
DOE Award Amount: $300,000
Project Summary: This project will develop a method to measure microstructural changes in the silicon layer of PV modules under accelerated heat and light stress tests, which are designed to predict the operational lifetime of the modules. The project team will focus on a particular type of silicon PV cells that have thin layers of silicon with hydrogen added in to change the electrical properties. These layers boost PV cell efficiency, but may decrease the material’s stability. This new method will measure how the hydrogen reacts to the accelerated lifetime tests and use this information to develop mitigation strategies and enable 30- to 50-year operational lifetimes for silicon heterojunction PV cells.
University of Hawaii at Manoa (Honolulu, Hawaii)
Project Name: Monolithic Encapsulation of Perovskite Solar Cells with Transparent Conductive Composites for Long-Term Stability
DOE Award Amount: $300,000
Project Summary: This project team will investigate a new sealant material to use as a protective outer layer on perovskite PV cells. Most sealants used today must be applied at high temperatures, which can break down the perovskite material. This new material could be applied at room temperature. The new material could also replace glass in cells where the glass is used as a protective layer, decreasing the cost of these modules.
University of Virginia (Charlottesville, Virginia)
Project Name: High Efficiency Recycled Silicon Solar Cells
DOE Award Amount: $250,000
Project Summary: This project will investigate new cost-effective and environmentally friendly methods for recycling silver metal used in silicon PV modules. The silver used for electrical contacts in silicon solar cells is one of the most expensive components, and is currently recovered from old or broken silicon solar cells using nitric acid–a technique that can be environmentally harmful and inefficient. This project will use a new method called laser ablation to remove silicon from PV modules by converting them into small particles. Laser ablation is a low environmental impact process that provides higher yield of recycled silver, and the silver particles recovered during the process can be directly used in manufacturing new silicon modules.
Uriel Solar (Westlake Village, California)
Project Name: Investigations of Single-Crystal Cadmium Telluride on Silicon to Enable Future PV Devices
DOE Award Amount: $300,000
Project Summary: This project will develop methods to add high-quality layers of cadmium telluride on top of silicon in PV cells. These layers have the potential for significantly higher power conversion efficiency compared to the silicon-only or cadmium telluride-only PV cells, but adding this layer can be challenging. This team will analyze and optimize methods for adding the cadmium telluride layer to maximize stability, efficiency, and ease of fabrication.
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