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The White House announced DOE’s $71 million investment in research and development projects to seed new technologies across the solar supply chain. This funding will enable new entrants to the solar manufacturing market to establish their technologies and access more capital.
DOE selected 10 projects as part of the Silicon Solar Manufacturing and Dual-use Photovoltaics Incubator funding program. These projects will support the development of technologies to onshore silicon wafer and cell manufacturing, while also opening new markets for solar deployment like building-integrated photovoltaics (PV) and agrivoltaics.
Eight projects will receive a total of $44 million from SETO’s Advancing U.S. Thin-Film Solar Photovoltaics funding program. These solar manufacturing projects will de-risk innovative tandem PV technologies including perovskites and reduce costs for cadmium telluride systems. They will innovate to spur rapid commercialization and production of thin-film technologies.
DOE just launched the American-Made Data-Driven Distributed (3D) Solar Visibility Prize as part of the Office of Electricity’s (OE) new Grid Resource Integration Technologies (GRIT) Prize Series. The 3D Solar Visibility Prize will award a total of $175,000 in cash prizes to competitors with the best distribution system state estimation tools. As more solar energy is connected to the grid, utility operators and planners require accurate, real-time information to optimize distributed solar energy resources and enhance the reliability and resilience of the grid. Register for an informational webinar on May 29 at 3 p.m. ET to learn more about this competition and sign up to compete by July 10.
Don't forget to participate in these funding opportunities, prizes, and solicitations:
It’s not too late to submit your best sun shots to the American-Made Solar Photo Competition: Hit Me with Your Sun Shot, a prize in search of the best photos of solar power. Winners of the competition can earn up to $2,500 for a photo in one of eight categories. The contest will award prizes and feature photos on SETO’s website, at solar events and conferences, and in other outreach material. Learn more and submit your photos by May 23 at 5 p.m. ET.
SETO funded the Interstate Renewable Energy Council’s Building a Technically Reliable Interconnection Evolution for Storage (BATRIES) toolkit, which lays out solutions to make energy storage interconnection easier than ever before. Learn more about the resulting toolkit that helped states like Michigan, New Mexico, and Vermont adopt best practices in interconnection.
SETO’s newest resource page helps city energy planners set solar energy goals and turn local government energy plans for renewable energy adoption into reality, advancing the clean energy transition one community at a time. The webpage provides an overview of tools and resources available from DOE and national labs.
Calling all community solar developers! Take a few minutes to participate in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) Sharing the Sun data collection. This annual dataset takes a snapshot of the community solar market and helps inform the future of the industry. The most recent dataset was released earlier this year and includes information about U.S. community solar projects through the end of 2023. Ensure your community solar projects are included in this dataset—access the 2024 data collection form and submit your responses by June 10. Contact Sudha Kannan at NREL with questions.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service released guidance on the domestic content bonus, building on and amending guidance from 2023. The Inflation Reduction Act contains a bonus tax credit available to developers of clean energy projects that meet certain requirements, and this guidance will enable more clean energy developers and manufacturers in the United States to take advantage of the bonus.
OE launched the Science Synthesis Prize as part of the new GRIT Prize Series. The GRIT Prize Series coordinates DOE prizes focused on integrating renewables onto the grid to catalyze research and development efforts. The Science Synthesis Prize seeks new and comprehensive knowledge on the current state of science in renewable integration and will award $125,000 in cash prizes to winning teams. Students, researchers, engineers, and other industry stakeholders can submit ideas by August 30.
NREL updated the popular Best Research-Cell Efficiency Chart to better represent tandem PV technologies. Learn more about the changes to this resource.
Solar energy is the fastest growing and most affordable source of clean electricity in America. However, cyber attacks pose security risks. This is why tailored, long-term security and resilience measures for PV systems are critical to our clean energy future. DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response funded a project with Sandia National Laboratories to design these measures specifically for PV systems and other distributed energy resources.
May 16 | 11 a.m. CT | Houston, TX
Join SETO’s Dr. Marissa Morales-Rodriguez at the Clean Energy Security and Reliability Forum, where she will be moderating a panel about innovations in the Securing Solar for the Grid project.
June 5 | 10:30 a.m. ET | Virtual
Join DOE's first Affordable Home Energy Shot™ Summit, where stakeholders will discuss this Energy Earthshot™ initiative to reduce the upfront cost of upgrading a home by at least 50% while reducing energy bills by 20% within a decade.
Webinar Materials: Introducing the DOE Transmission Interconnection Roadmap
The Interconnection Innovation e-Xchange (i2X) team hosted a webinar to provide an overview of the new Transmission Interconnection Roadmap and lay the foundation for future deep-dive conversations. Watch a recording of the webinar and download the slide deck.
Learn more about SETO or DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
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