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Washington, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) has announced investments up to $17.6 million for six early stage photovoltaic (PV) module incubator projects that focus on the initial manufacturing of advanced solar PV technologies. The total research investment is expected to reach up to $35.4 million with cost sharing from industry.
Aimed at accelerating the time it takes to transition PV technologies from the lab into pilot production and to reduce the cost, improve performance and expand the manufacturing capacity of PV modules, the six companies selected to start their 18-month projects are 1366 Technologies, Innovalight, Skyline Solar, Solasta, Solexel and Spire Semiconductor. All six companies will receive about a $3 million investment.
Here's a quick snapshot of their technologies.
1366 Technologies (Lexington, Mass.) is developing a new cell architecture and related processes for low-cost multi-crystalline silicon cells. The company plans to deliver a 19-percent efficient, 15.6 x1 5.6-cm2, multi-crystalline silicon cell with a technology that is applicable across the crystalline silicon cell industry.
Innovalight (Sunnyvale, Calif.) is developing very high-efficiency, low-cost solar cells and modules by inkjet printing their proprietary "silicon ink" onto thin-crystalline silicon wafers.
Skyline Solar (Mountain View, Calif.) has developed an integrated lightweight, single-axis tracked system that has been demonstrated to reflect and concentrate sunlight over 10x onto silicon cells. The use of mirrors to concentrate light will reduce the use of the greatest cost driver for traditional silicon modules, the solar cells, by over 90%, according to the company. It seeks to dramatically lower the cost to manufacture modules and install complete systems to achieve a levelized cost of energy below grid parity. By the end of this project, Skyline plans to deliver modules that exceed 12 m2 area and 15 percent aperture-area efficiency.
Solasta (Newton, Mass.) is using a novel cell design based on an amorphous-silicon "nanocoax" structure, which increases current and lowers materials cost by shortening the path charge carriers must travel to the cell's conducting wires, according to the company. Solasta plans to deliver 15-percent efficient, 100-cm2 pre-production cells at the end of the project.
Solexel (Milpitas, Calif.) plans to commercialize a disruptive, 3D, high-efficiency mono-crystalline silicon cell technology, while significantly reducing manufacturing cost per watt. Solexel expects to deliver a 17-19-percent efficient, 156 x 156-mm2, single-crystal cell that consumes substantially lower silicon per watt than conventionally sliced wafers.
Spire Semiconductor (Hudson, N.H.) plans on opening up the design space for three-junction tandem solar cells by growing differentiated bi-facial cells on a gallium arsenide substrate. The company is targeting cell efficiencies over 42 percent using a low-cost manufacturing method.
These projects support the Solar America Initiative, which aims to make solar energy cost-competitive with conventional forms of electricity by 2015.
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