On November 1, 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) and the Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI) STEM Research and Development Consortium (MSRDC) announced the Science and Technology Research Partnership (STRP) funding program. This program will be administered by MSRDC and is designed to promote innovation from MSIs in solar energy research and development for underrepresented groups.
The STRP program solicited applications for the following programmatic research areas:
- Photovoltaic Hardware Performance, Reliability, and Characterization
- Energy Resilience in Communities
- Reducing the Non-Hardware Costs of Solar – Analysis, Tools, and Data Resources and Supporting a Just Transition to 100% Renewable Energy Futures in Small Cities
- Manufacturing and Competitiveness – Applied Solar Technology and Perovskite Benchmarking
- Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power Technology and Cost Improvements
On April 14, 2022, SETO announced that 8 projects were awarded $3.2 million. The selected institutions represent several categories of MSIs: Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions. These projects will span two years and include career and performance training for team members as part of their award.
Selectees
Topic Area 1: Photovoltaic Hardware Performance, Reliability, and Characterization
UNIVERSITY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Project Name: Development of Efficient and Stable Perovskite Solar Cells with Tin Oxide as an Electron Transport Layer
Principal Investigator: Hongmei Dang
Location: Washington, D.C.
DOE Award Amount: $400,000
Project Summary: This project aims to increase the stability and efficiency of perovskite photovoltaic (PV) cells by changing the material used for the electron transport layer (ETL), which facilitates the transfer of electricity from the perovskite material to the metal electrodes leading out of the PV cell. The team will replace the conventional titanium dioxide (TiO2) ETL in these cells with a tin oxide (SnO2) ETL, developing low-temperature fabrication methods for this layer that make it stable and relatively defect-free. They will also use advanced characterization techniques to understand how perovskite PV cells with an SnO2 ETL break down in order to increase their stability. The knowledge and techniques they develop will be used to create teaching materials and expand collaboration opportunities that will benefit the next generation of the clean energy workforce.
Topic Area 2: Energy Resilience in Communities
TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Project Name: Enhancing Community Energy Resilience through Solar Energy and Energy Storage Sharing
Principal Investigator: Zhijie (Sasha) Dong
Location: San Marcos, TX
DOE Award Amount: $400,000
Project Summary: Major grid disturbances, such as natural disasters and planned blackouts, cause energy resilience challenges for vulnerable communities across the country. To address these challenges, this project will develop a sharing platform to promote the adoption of solar energy and energy storage by vulnerable communities to improve their energy resilience and ensure reliable energy supply during power failure. The team will partner with local communities to develop a system that can provide affordable solar and energy storage service through cost sharing, with no need for individual device management. To accomplish this, the team will identify the technical and economic bottlenecks to energy resilience, assess metrics such as cost efficiency, reliability, and equity, and find ways to accommodate vulnerable communities through mutual assistance.
SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY
Project Name: California Public Utilities Public Safety Power Shutoffs Impact on Disadvantaged Communities
Principal Investigators: John McMillan and Erlinde Cornelis
Location: San Diego, CA
DOE Award Amount: $400,000
Project Summary: This project will focus on the intersection of poverty and the effects of climate change by examining how disadvantaged communities have been impacted by and responded to California utility Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS). Mitigating PSPS impacts, such as physical and mental health, food security and access, and financial well-being, requires resource deployment at the community level to accelerate resilience from the bottom up. Using data from California utilities, policy makers, regulators, and community organizations, the research team will develop multiple case studies that will highlight and mitigate PSPS challenges that disadvantaged communities face and investigate the technical and non-technical resiliency solutions being enacted or envisioned as a response to prolonged power outages.
Topic Area 3: Reducing the Non-Hardware Costs of Solar – Analysis, Tools, and Data Resources and Supporting a Just Transition to 100% Renewable Energy Futures in Small Cities
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
Project Name: Teamed Internships: Innovative Education for Solar Technicians and Engineers
Principal Investigator: Gregory Ogden
Location: Tucson, AZ
DOE Award Amount: $400,000
Project Summary: Rapid deployment of clean energy will require a substantial increase in climate- and sustainability-focused workers, as well as reduced installation and operating costs in the solar industry sector. The University of Arizona has partnered with Pima Community College, local businesses, and utilities to develop the “Teamed Internship and Certificate Program for Solar Technicians and Engineers” program, which aims to educate underrepresented groups about solar technology and promote emerging career opportunities in clean energy. The program addresses perceived and ideological differences between technicians and engineers and the differences between operations and management through various types of classroom education and field experience.
Topic Area 4: Manufacturing and Competitiveness – Applied Solar Technology and Perovskite Benchmarking
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO
Project Name: Semi-transparent Bifacial Agrivoltaic System with Machine Learning
Principal Investigator: Gowtham Mohan
Location: Albuquerque, NM
DOE Award Amount: $400,000
Project Summary: The new field of agrivoltaics—combining agriculture with photovoltaic (PV) systems—has only been effective for a limited group of crops due to the high amount of shading under the solar panels. To address this challenge, this project will develop an agrivoltaic system using semi-transparent, plastic bifacial solar panels. Since these panels are semi-transparent, they will let more light through to the crops than traditional solar panels. They can also use light reflected from the plants to produce more electricity since they are bifacial. A machine learning model will be developed to predict the performance of the agrivoltaic system, and these predictions will be used to improve the system. The team will evaluate both the PV system performance and the agricultural crop yields.
Topic Area 5: Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power Technology and Cost Improvements
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO
Project Name: Development and Demonstration of Innovative Compact Heat Exchangers for Concentrated Solar Power Plants
Principal Investigator: Minghui Chen
Location: Albuquerque, NM
DOE Award Amount: $400,000
Project Summary: Printed circuit steam generators (PCSGs) have the potential to dramatically reduce cost and improve reliability in concentrating solar-thermal power plants. This project will design, model, and test PCSGs in high-temperature molten salt-to-water and steam applications. In addition to gathering robust performance data for these systems, the team will generate new knowledge about their material strain, stress, and creep-fatigue behaviors, boiling behavior in both mini- or micro-channels, and flow oscillations and instabilities.
UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS
Project Name: Development of a Magnetic Shaft Coupling for a Dish CSP-Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Power Generation System
Principal Investigator: Yahia Baghzouz
Location: Las Vegas, NV
DOE Award Amount: $400,000
Project Summary: This project team will build and test a working small-scale concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) system prototype that has the potential to significantly boost power conversion efficiency and reliability while lowering cost. The project team will develop an innovative magnetic coupler design to improve the efficiency of the connection between the power turbine and electric generator. This technology has the potential to significantly improve the performance of high-efficiency, small-scale, modular CSP power cycles that use supercritical carbon dioxide to drive a heat engine. These improvements in cost and efficiency can enable distributed CSP power systems to contribute to the widespread deployment of solar energy.
FLORIDA A&M UNIVERSITY
Project Name: Comprehensive Consideration of System-level Thermal Transients in Optimized Particle-Based Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power
Principal Investigator: Juan Ordonez
Location: Tallahassee, FL
DOE Award Amount: $400,000
Project Summary: This project will develop advanced models for innovative solid-particle-based thermal energy storage technologies. These models will enable enhanced operational strategies for concentrating solar-thermal power and pumped thermal energy storage (PTES) systems by incorporating realistic physical models into existing tools. In collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the project team will explore a variety of configurations to reduce costs and de-risk these technologies to maximize their value and usefulness on grids with multiple renewable energy technologies.