2022 SETO Peer Review – Manufacturing and Competitiveness Projects

Project Name: Single-Source Vapor Deposition Equipment for High-Throughput Manufacturing of Thin-Film Perovskite Solar Absorbers
Awardee: BlueDot Photonics
Location: Kirkland, Washington
DOE Award Amount: $662,739
Principal Investigator: Daniel Kroupa 
Project Summary: This project team is developing modular, single-source vapor deposition (SSVD) hardware to enable high-throughput processing and manufacturing of thin-film perovskite solar absorbers. SSVD has the potential to be a rapid, cost-effective technique in which powder is turned directly to vapor and coated onto a substrate, the base of a solar cell. The team will design, build, and test a manufacturing platform that will improve the coating’s uniformity on the cell, as well as its optical and electronic quality. This work will enable the next generation of solar manufacturing equipment for thin-film solar cell technology.

Project Name: Reduced Environmental Controls in Perovskite Solar Cell Manufacturing Enabled by Vacuum-Deposited Gas Barrier Coatings
Awardee: GVD Corp.
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
DOE Award Amount: $1,300,000
Principal Investigator: Christopher Thompson
Project Summary: This project is developing a low-cost gas barrier coating for perovskite solar cells. The coating will protect against environmental gases like water vapor that can degrade the perovskite material. The coating will reduce the cost and improve the reliability of the manufacturing process.

Project Name: Brittle Fracture Wafering of Silicon Ingots for Low Cost, High Efficiency C-Si Solar Cells
Awardee: Halo Industries
Location: Menlo Park, California
DOE Award Amount: $1,073,288
Principal Investigator: Andrei Iancu
Project Summary: This project is developing a prototype for new solar wafer manufacturing technologies with the goal of significantly reducing the cost of materials for existing crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cell architectures. Streamlining the wafer fabrication process through more efficient and automated production line tools will eliminate silicon waste while reducing both process and operational complexity.

Project Name: Electrospray Deposition of Perovskite Solar Cells
Awardee: NanoSonic 
Location: Pembroke, Virginia
DOE Award Amount: $1,300,000
Principal Investigator: Lee Williams
Project Summary: Perovskite is a material that increases the efficiency of solar cells, but it is difficult to apply evenly on the cell’s base, which is often glass. NanoSonic partnered with Pennsylvania State University to create a cost-effective perovskite spray that evenly deposits the material on the base of the solar cells while maintaining its solar conversion performance.

Project Name: Solar Modules: Low Cost Manufacturing
Awardee: nexTC Corp.
Location: Corvallis, Oregon
DOE Award Amount: $1,300,000
Principal Investigator: Cory Perkins
Project Summary: This project team is developing a liquid solution of transparent conductive oxides to coat very large thin-film modules. This solution will be able to conduct electricity while also preventing environmental moisture, gases, and dirt from seeping into the equipment.

Project Name: Toward Commercialization of Low-Cost, Crack-Tolerant, Screen-Printable Metallization by Full-Size Module Testing and Field Characterization
Awardee: Osazda Energy
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico 
DOE Award Amount: $900,000
Principal Investigator: Sang M. Han
Project Summary: This project is developing a cost-effective metal paste that strengthens the metal connections in solar cells, improving their resistance to fracture, and minimizes cracks that result from degradation and handling. This will increase the long-term durability of the cells. The team will measure and compare crack tolerance with this paste compared with conventional metallization paste, and work with several partners, including a group at Sandia National Laboratories, to test the modules in the field.

Project Name: Developing a Single Beam Ion Source Technology for Efficient Manufacturing of Transparent Conductive Thin Films
Awardee: Scion Plasma
Location: East Lansing, Michigan
DOE Award Amount: $800,000
Principal Investigator: Maheshwar Shrestha
Project Summary: This project will develop a tool that rapidly deposits transparent conductive oxide onto heterojunction silicon with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) solar cells, improving their performance. HIT cells are more efficient than other device structures but require a transparent conductive oxide. However, these oxides are costly and difficult to deposit quickly without altering the structure of the cell and lowering its efficiency. This technology will increase the oxide deposition rate, which will increase the manufacturing rate of these cells while reducing the cost, thereby increasing their market value.

Project Name:An Energy Internet Platform for Transactive Energy and Demand Response Applications
Awardee: BEM Controls
Location: McLean, Virginia
DOE Award Amount: $1,200,000
Principal Investigator: Rasheq Rahman
Project Summary: This project team is developing software that uses blockchain to securely manage data, communications, and the control of devices among many elements and participants in a microgrid, including building managers, utilities, and distributed energy resource asset owners.

Project Name: 250 kW Solar String Inverter Using Silicon Carbide (SiC) Modular Architecture and Grid Support Functionality
Awardee: Brek Electronics
Location: Englewood, Colorado
DOE Award Amount: $1,285,000
Principal Investigator: Roger Bell
Project Summary: BREK Electronics Corp. is developing a new power converter technology for string inverters. The technology has higher power ratings and higher power density, allowing its use in utility-scale solar installations and reducing capital costs.

Project Name:Advanced Peer-to-Peer Transactive Energy Platform with Predictive Optimization
Awardee: ecoLong
Location: Slingerlands, New York
DOE Award Amount: $1,200,000
Principal Investigator: Nancy Min
Project Summary: This project team is creating software that allows consumers and utilities to directly communicate with each other about energy services, optimizing distributed energy resource assets, building load, and transaction costs. The software algorithm will be able to predict energy load and generation over short and medium periods.

Project Name: Cybersecurity Intrusion Detection System for Large-Scale Solar Field Networks
Awardee: Operant Networks Corp.
Location: Santa Rosa, California
DOE Award Amount: $2,250,000
Principal Investigator: Randall King
Project Summary: This project fills a market void by aiming to commercialize a modular, economical cybersecurity intrusion detection system that can be scaled to solar energy systems of any size. This system uses next-generation wireless mesh networking and blockchain technology to protect the U.S. electric grid from security breaches.

Project Name: Peer-to-Peer Transactions with Demand Flexibility for Increasing Solar Utilization
Awardee: QCoefficient
Location: New York, New York
DOE Award Amount: $1,144,000
Principal Investigator: Vincent J. Cushing
Project Summary: This project is developing a platform that automates energy transactions between electric grid users, especially commercial building owners and distributed energy resource (DER) asset owners and managers. Known as EMeister, this “software as a service” platform allows users to pay for the service at the rate it is being used. The technology leverages large commercial buildings’ superior heating, ventilation, and air conditioning flexibility to enable reliable contributions from co-located photovoltaics (PV) and smaller buildings. This platform will significantly reduce energy use, expenses for electricity and energy services, and emissions for its customers.

Project Name: The BREKTRIA 500 – A Breakthrough in Technology and Power Density for a 500 kW Utility-Scale String Inverter
Awardee: Solectria Renewables
Location: Lawrence, Massachusetts
DOE Award Amount: $2,000,000
Principal Investigator: Miles Russell
Project Summary: This project is creating a state-of-the-art 500 kilowatt (kW) utility-scale string inverter that has unprecedented power density, record-setting efficiency, ultra-low cost potential, and a comprehensive suite of cutting-edge features. The BREKTRIA 500 will be storage-ready and have advanced cybersecurity hardening. Additionally, six of the inverters can be pre-assembled to create a 3 megawatt (MW) building block, for utility projects of any size! The BREKTRIA 500 builds on a laboratory prototype developed after years of research into silicon carbide converters. The cost target is $0.02 per watt and the efficiency target is 99%. Installation cost savings will be approximately $0.02 per watt compared to commercially available utility-scale string inverters.

Project Name: Advanced Distributed Grid Infrastructure
Awardee: Span.IO
Location: San Francisco, California
DOE Award Amount: $1,285,000
Principal Investigator: Chadwick Conway
Project Summary: This project is developing hardware for solar-plus-storage systems that will build upon Span's first-generation novel breaker panel. This work will reduce the cost and complexity of adopting solar-plus-storage systems by reducing installation time and material costs. This system will be used in newly built homes and retrofitted ones. It will give homeowners the ability to monitor and control both their loads and generation and also improve the interface between homes and grid operators.  

Project Name: Re-Thinking Solar Energy Delivery: Non-Wire Solar-Powered Energy Carriers Integrated with Utility-Scale Generation to Advance Solar Adoption to 30% of Total Generation Before 2030
Awardee: StorEdgeAI
Location: Bothell, Washington
DOE Award Amount: $1,845,370
Principal Investigator: Ranjan Gupta
Project Summary: Sustained advances in solar technologies have led to a levelized cost of electricity of less than $0.03 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for utility-scale solar, but the delivered cost remains as high as $0.20/kWh in some states due to the ever-increasing costs of operations of transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure. This project is developing a non-wire delivery system to circumvent a utility’s T&D in order to accelerate solar adoption and achieve a delivered cost less than $0.15/kWh before 2025. The system includes a utility-scale solar array that is directly connected to an integrated mobile energy storage system with on-board power electronics systems. Since there is no grid-connection, the inverters and the alternating current balance of plant equipment are not required. Such solar plants can be seamlessly built with environmental permits only, eliminating the years-long process to secure grid interconnection rights and thereby eliminating a very large portion of the soft costs. By removing the need for T&D infrastructure, this project aims to lower solar costs as more consumers adopt solar.

Project Name: Solar Array Racking System
Awardee: Acme Express
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
DOE Award Amount: $1,205,000
Principal Investigator: Don Scipione
Project Summary: This project team is designing an automated solar module racking system that can be produced from sheet metal on the installation site and withstand intense weather conditions, such as heavy snow and strong winds. The system is designed to have a lifetime of at least 30 years. Current solar module racking systems require preordering, transporting, inventory, and labor-intensive deployment. This new approach could reduce costs by up to 30% compared to conventional multicomponent racking systems that require more labor to produce and assemble.

Project Name: Low-Cost Dual-Axis Solar Positioning System with Novel Monopole and Integral Lateral Support
Awardee: Helical Solar Solutions
Location: Austin, Texas
DOE Award Amount: $1,350,000
Principal Investigator: James McKinion
Project summary: This project addresses several critical barriers to small- and medium-size rural solar installations by developing an easy-to-install bifacial, dual-axis solar energy system that allows the solar panels to move in two directions. This allows the system to better track the sun and increase the amount of solar energy generated.

Project Name:Intelligently Manufactured Homes with Factory Integrated Solar Systems Delivered to the Build Site Enabling Dramatic Soft Cost Reductions
Awardee: Phase3 Photovoltaics
Location: Beaverton, Oregon
DOE Award Amount: $1,200,000
Principal Investigator: Ethan Good
Project Summary: Phase3 is advancing its low-cost, pre-installed solar-plus-storage system for new factory-built homes. Integrating solar panels into the pre-manufactured-home fabrication process can substantially reduce the cost of the system relative to a traditional rooftop solar installation on a home. Incorporating the solar system into the home’s cost can also make financing easier. Phase3 won the American-Made Solar Prize in 2019 with this innovation.

Project Name:Resilient Solar Racking System to Provide Consistent Electricity to Regions Impacted by Natural Disasters
Awardee: Quest Renewables
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
DOE Award Amount: $1,300,000
Principal Investigator: Norman Findley
Project Summary: This project is developing a storm-resilient solar racking system capable of producing clean energy during severe weather conditions.

Project Name: Outdoor Autonomous Manipulation of Photovoltaic Panels (O-AMPP)
Awardee: RE2
Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
DOE Award Amount: $1,905,966
Principal Investigator: Amanda Sgroi
Project Summary: This project aims to develop a novel, outdoor, autonomous, robotic system using state-of-the-art computer vision and machine learning techniques. If successful, this system will decrease labor required for this process by 75%, reduce total soft costs as much as 10% (approximately $0.02-$0.05 per Watt), and create a 38% reduction in total construction time for a new solar field.

Project Name: Field Factory for Cost Reduction and Deployment Acceleration of PV Power Plants
Awardee: Terabase Energy
Location: Berkeley, California
DOE Award Amount: $1,000,000
Principal Investigator: Soren T. Jensen
Project Summary: This project team will create a new field factory facility that accelerates PV power plant construction and reduces soft costs. The team will design and field-test key subsystems of this approach to project construction and then conduct an integrated field demonstration. They will validate the cost, time, and levelized cost of energy targets that underpin the benefits of this facility and prepare the technology for broader commercialization within the industry. The goal is to enable better process control, lower costs, enhanced safety, and faster installation rates.

Project Name: Autonomous Control System for PV Table Delivery and Placement
Awardee: Terabase Energy
Location: Berkeley, California
DOE Award Amount: $1,500,000
Principal Investigator: Allan Daly
Project Summary: In typical solar power plant construction, large quantities of materials are delivered and manually distributed across the land area for assembly and installation. Large power plants can include thousands of deliveries and millions of individual parts that must be assembled. This project aims to automate onsite material distribution and installation by developing embedded control systems for the autonomous collection and distribution of solar power plant equipment, including pre-assembled photovoltaic tables, to their installation location.

Project Name: Bifacial PV System Low-Cost High-Accuracy Irradiance Measurements
Awardee: Atonometrics Inc. 
Location: Austin, Texas
DOE Award Amount: $1,300,000
Principal Investigator: Michael Gostein
Project Summary: The lack of accurate power generation data from bifacial, or double-sided, modules at photovoltaic power plants increases the cost to operate such plants. This project is working to design and prototype a low-cost, accurate irradiance measurement station and determine its commercial feasibility.

Project Name:PV Module Soiling Spectral Deposition Detector
Awardee: Atonometrics Inc.
Location: Austin, Texas
DOE Award Amount: $1,300,000
Principal Investigator: Michael Gostein
Project Summary: This project is helping to determine the commercial feasibility of an affordable technology that can measure soiling, or dust and dirt on panels, which can limit the efficiency of solar equipment and lead to increased operation costs. The technology, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, involves shining light through dirty glass to see how much comes through the other side.

Project Name: Contactless Production Testing of Silicon Solar Cells
Awardee: Sinton Instruments
Location: Boulder, Colorado
DOE Award Amount: $540,000
Principal Investigator: Ronald Sinton
Project Summary: Cost reductions in silicon solar cells are made by minimizing the use of expensive silver in gridlines, which reduces the electrical contact area and makes cells extremely difficult to test and sort prior to manufacturing. Standard illuminated current-voltage (I-V) testing is being performed with up to 12 probe bars, which obscures the solar cell from the light source and compromises data integrity. This project will assess the possibility to radically change the I-V test station by enabling diagnostic tools to sort the cells with relaxed probing requirements. By having a contactless or near-contactless evaluation of the solar cell, handling and maintenance costs could be greatly reduced. Additionally, this project is adding hardware and analysis features to its production tools in order gather redundant production data to reduce automation costs and complexity, accelerating PV cell optimization.

Project Name:Microwave Photoconductance Spectrometer for Thin-Film Deposited Semiconductor Materials
Awardee: Tau Science Corp.
Location: Hillsboro, Oregon
DOE Award Amount: $1,300,000
Principal Investigator: Greg Horner
Project Summary: Researchers across the country are developing a new generation of thin-film solar cell that may soon become economically viable, complementing or even replacing older technologies such as silicon cells. This project is developing a characterization tool based on a technology patented by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to enable in-line control monitoring of the quality of these next-generation materials.

Project Name:Livestock and Solar—Synergistic Opportunities for Rural America
Awardee: FarmAfield Labs
Location: Lincoln, Nebraska
DOE Award Amount: $1,350,000
Principal Investigator: Mitchell Minarick
Project Summary: This project is developing a solar photovoltaic system that will reduce electricity cost and improve the quality of livestock in rural areas.

Project Name:Advanced Manufacturing of Low-Cost Building Integrated Organic Photovoltaic Modules
Awardee: NanoFlex Power Corp.
Location: Scottsdale, Arizona
DOE Award Amount: $1,300,000
Principal Investigator: Adam Barito
Project Summary: This project team is developing flexible solar sheets in a variety of sizes and colors to mount on commercial building facades, enabling low-cost renewable energy to help meet energy demand on site.

Project Name: Solar River – Canal Spanning Solar Power
Awardee: Tectonicus Constructs
Location: Bisbee, Arizona
DOE Award Amount: $1,350,000
Principal Investigator: Benjamin Lepley
Project Summary: This project enables landowners to obtain more revenue from cropland by covering and powering their irrigation canals with solar. This team will build solar structures that reduce evaporation and lower irrigation costs without impeding crop production or requiring the move of farm equipment.

Project Name: American-Made Solar Prize
Awardee: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, Colorado
DOE Award Amount: $29,000,000
Principal Investigator: Debbie Brodt-Giles
Project Summary: This project is a multi-million-dollar prize competition designed to energize U.S. solar manufacturing through a series of contests and the development of a diverse and powerful support network that leverages national laboratories, energy incubators, and other resources across the country. The yearly competition enables the rapid development of innovative solar solutions by providing resources and support to entrepreneurs as they transform concepts into early-stage prototypes ready for industry testing. By tapping into the nation’s unparalleled innovation ecosystem and America’s competitive spirit, this competition helps to reenergize American energy innovation and supports the growth of U.S. manufacturing.

Project Name: American-Made Perovskite Startup Prize
Awardee: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, Colorado
DOE Award Amount: $3,600,000
Principal Investigator: Sarah Gomach
Project Summary: This prize competition is designed to accelerate the development and manufacturing of perovskite solar cells by moving world-class research out of the lab and into new U.S. companies. Competitors who advance from the first stage to the second will receive a $200,000 cash prize. The winners of the second stage will receive $500,000 in cash—a combined total of $700,000—plus $100,000 in technical support vouchers for launching a viable solar manufacturing company with the potential to introduce marketable perovskite products in the United States. By soliciting the talents and innovative spirit of diverse American entrepreneurs, the Perovskite Startup Prize will advance this promising technology and help increase opportunities for U.S. manufacturers.

Project Name: American-Made VELOCITI Voucher Program
Awardee: Sandia National Laboratories, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico; Golden, Colorado; Richland, Washington
DOE Award Amount: $1,715,000
Principal Investigator: Irene Trujillo
Project Summary: This project aims to build bridges between U.S. entrepreneurs and the national labs to advance the commercialization of game-changing technologies in solar energy. NREL and SNL have each implemented vouchers for several DOE-funded programs, namely American-Made Challenges, the Incubator Program, and the Small Business Vouchers Program. The funding for this project covers the program costs and the vouchers themselves.

Project Name: PV PACT: PV Perovskite Accelerator for Commercial Technologies
Awardee: Sandia National Laboratories
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico
DOE Award Amount: $9,000,000
Principal Investigator: Joshua Stein
Project Summary: This project team has the combined expertise of Sandia and Los Alamos National Lab researchers, commercial PV test laboratory CFV Labs, engineering and assessment firm Black and Veatch, and the Electric Power Research Institute. PV PACT will bring together industry, investors, project developers, independent engineers, test labs, equipment manufacturers, and model developers to map a path to commercialization of perovskite PV technologies. PACT will develop performance and reliability test protocols that can be performed by commercial PV test labs using standard equipment. These will be formalized into industrial standards during the project. In parallel, PACT will investigate relationships between module design and performance stability and degradation. Perovskite-specific technology readiness levels will be defined and used to rank technology improvements and establish an incentive system to bring companies into the center. PACT will offer a tiered bankability program that helps perovskite PV companies trying to commercialize their module technologies. The center will deploy more than 50 kilowatts of perovskite PV systems in multiple climates in order to validate performance and reliability in the field.