Awardee Communications Support

Award Attribution Language

The Solar Energy Technologies Office relies on its brand identity to build awareness of and participation in its work. Strong brand awareness improves the quality of applications to solar office funding programs and enables progress toward realizing its vision and goals. Furthermore, proper attribution in your reports, presentations, and other materials allows the Energy Department to evaluate the impact of its funding over time. Please follow these guidelines when creating reports or communications materials related to your project.  

OFFICE NAMES  

Please use the following naming conventions to identify and distinguish work performed with funding assistance from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office. Refer to the solar office as the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office upon first mention. Note that “technologies” is plural and “Department of Energy” is not possessive. Upon second mention, the office may be called the Solar Energy Technologies Office. Consistent and proper use of this name encourages quality and accuracy of all communications.  

The following are acceptable ways to refer to the U.S. Department of Energy:  

 Proper Naming                   

• U.S. Department of Energy  
• Energy Department  
• Energy Dept. 
• U.S. Energy Department  
• U.S. Energy Dept.  

 Improper Naming 

• U.S. DOE 

BOILERPLATE DESCRIPTION  

When creating communications materials about your project—including press releases, webpages, presentations, fact sheets, and brochures—please include this boilerplate at the bottom:  

About the Solar Energy Technologies Office  

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office supports early-stage research and development to improve the affordability, reliability, and domestic benefit of solar technologies on the grid. Learn more at energy.gov/solar-office 

When issuing press releases, please acknowledge that you received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office. For online communications, when the office is first referenced, please link the Solar Energy Technologies Office’s name to energy.gov/solar-office. 

REQUIRED ATTRIBUTION FOR RESEARCH REPORTS

Funding recipients must include the following acknowledgement in publications arising from or relating to work performed under their award, regardless of whether it’s copyrighted. Please reach out to your technology manager in the Solar Energy Technologies Office if you do not know your award number (i.e., DE-000000).  

Acknowledgment: This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under the Solar Energy Technologies Office Award Number DE-_________.  

Disclaimer: This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.  

Abridged Legal Disclaimer: The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy or the United States Government.  

The U.S. Department of Energy encourages funding recipients to publish or otherwise make publicly available the results of work performed under their award. Most funding programs require that all publications resulting from Solar Energy Technologies Office funding be published on the Energy Department’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) website, OSTI.gov.  

CONFERENCE PRODUCTS 

For presentations related to projects funded by the Solar Energy Technologies Office, the presenter should acknowledge the office as the funder, both verbally and in writing, and must submit a copy of the conference proceeding, paper, or presentation to E-Link. This includes but is not limited to conference presentations, trade show demonstrations, webinars, and seminars. 

WEB APPLICATIONS  

To improve brand awareness and search engine optimization, please use the following conventions when referring to the Solar Energy Technologies Office online:  

• When referring to your work on a webpage, in a digital newsletter, or in a report, please embed a link to http://www.energy.gov/solar-office on the office’s first reference and on any images or graphics related to the project.  
• When referring to your work on a webpage or in a blog post or article, acknowledge the Solar Energy Technologies Office as the funder of your project in the text, and include a link to your funding program webpage and/or project profile webpage.  
• For webpages, blog posts, or articles referring to your award, tag your content with “Solar Energy Technologies Office” and “U.S. Department of Energy” and add the office’s name, funding program, and any other relevant details to your webpage’s metadata and/or webpage summary.  

PUBLISHING REPORTS ON OSTI.GOV  

Many funding agreements require that reports be published on OSTI.gov. Awardees are encouraged to publish all reports, presentations, and manuscripts relating to their work funded by the Solar Energy Technologies Office on OSTI.gov. This complies with Energy Department policy to publicly disseminate the work funded by taxpayers. It ensures equitable access to scientific work and that the work reaches the widest possible audience to increase its impact. See SETO-funded publications on OSTI.gov.  

If you publish an article in a journal, you should upload the accepted manuscript to OSTI through E-Link before the online publish date. This video shows you how to upload the accepted manuscript. The accepted manuscript is the version of the article that has been accepted for publication and includes all modifications resulting from the peer review process.  

If the publication is not published open-source, there will be a 12-month hold placed on the manuscript before it is released to the public. During these 12 months, the metadata will be accessible via DOE PAGES and include a note indicating when the full text will be available to the public. At the same time, the full text will be accessible through DOE PAGES to those with the proper credentials, via a link on the publisher’s website.  

While all DOE-funded work may be made public, if you have any concerns about publishing your journal article on OSTI.gov, check with the journal publisher to ensure there are no time-bound restrictions on making the article publicly accessible.  

Every journal and publishing group has its own policy on releasing published work to the public. Some require a waiting period before making the published work available through OSTI, and some may require that certain journal-identifying information be included in the OSTI release.  

Before submitting journal-published work to OSTI, awardees should review that particular journal’s data-sharing policies. Here are some of the major publishers and their policies:  

• ACS Publications 
• American Physical Society
• Elsevier 
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)  
• Nature  
• PLOS One 
• Science 
• Taylor & Francis Online 
• The Electrochemical Society 
• The Royal Society of Chemistry 

Any award issued or renewed after October 1, 2014, includes terms and conditions for submitting journal articles. Information specific to DOE can be found at https://www.osti.gov/public-access.  

Some journals will charge authors a fee to make their articles publicly accessible. While DOE-funded authors may publish in journals of their choice—including open-access journals, if the award’s terms and conditions allow it—they do not need to pay fees to enable public access. DOE provides public access through its license to the accepted manuscript or through publishers’ voluntary efforts. If you have any questions about this process, please refer to your Federal Assistance Reporting Checklist (FARC) and contact your technology manager.  

UTILIZATION REPORTS

You are required to disclose any inventions or patents resulting from SETO-funded work on iEdison.gov by submitting a utilization report, which explains how your invention is used. This report is an annual requirement, and you will receive reminders to submit it. For help with the iEdison system, contact edison@od.nih.gov or 1-866-504- 9552 (option 3). You can find more details on intellectual property reporting and utilization reports in the Award Documents section of FedConnect.  

REPOSTING AND REMIXING CONTENT  

All content on the Energy Department website and its affiliated webpages, unless otherwise stated, is in the public domain. This includes webpages (.gov), social media posts, and related images/video/media featured in the posts, and Energy Department–affiliated websites and accounts like Flickr and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Image Gallery.  

Awardees are encouraged to repost solar success stories, blog posts, video, and other digital content featured on the Energy Department’s website. When content created by the Solar Energy Technologies Office is remixed or reposted, please attribute it to the Solar Energy Technologies Office at the top of the webpage or in a similarly prominent way, with a link to the original content source and the following statement: This [blog post/success story/news brief/video/graphic—embed a link to the content source here] was originally created and published by the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office. 

Communicating Awardee Success

When your project meets a major milestone, we want to know about it. Please tell your technology manager, who can then recommend that we write a success story. Success stories highlight a project’s significant research or technical accomplishment that will significantly impact the solar industry. We publish stories about:  

• First-of-its-kind inventions that have new customers or partners that will commercialize this technology  
• High-profile partnerships that resulted from a technology or research development  
• Projects with significant implications for end users, solar industry members, utilities, and/or adjacent industries  
• Research developments that have real-world applications, improve the state of the art, receive an award, and/or achieve major milestones. In addition, the Solar Energy Technologies Office has a blog and news section, where it can feature awardee work.  
• Blog posts are short write-ups that feature stories about a variety of topics, such as industry trends, new concepts, a funding program, and helping consumers better understand solar.  
• News briefs are timely updates that highlight a major milestone, development, or industry award. These updates are featured on the office’s website and are longer versions of the updates typically featured in the office’s newsletter.  

While there are limitations on how the Energy Department can promote an organization’s work, content drafted by the Solar Energy Technologies Office can be promoted on Energy Department social media channels and used in speeches or briefings by department officials. 

PRESS RELEASES

The Solar Energy Technologies Office does not need to review awardee press releases but appreciates knowing about them in advance. Please notify your technology manager or the communications team—especially if you anticipate significant media attention from a major achievement or high-profile partners. We can help.  

For announcements about funding program selections, the strategic support team provides press release templates that can help selectees and their organizations disseminate information quickly and accurately. Use of this template is not mandatory. The template includes instructions to make it easier for organizations with limited communications staff or experience to participate in media engagement.  

Press releases should mention of the Solar Energy Technologies Office’s funding in the body of the text. It should link to the office’s website and include the boilerplate (see pages 3-4).  

Note: The Energy Department may provide a quote for third-party press releases upon request. Or, an awardee may include a quote from an agency official that appears in an Energy Department press release, as long as it’s clear the quote came from an Energy Department press release.  

SOCIAL MEDIA

The Solar Energy Technologies Office does not own or manage its social media properties, but the Energy Department’s social media channels feature the office’s announcements and success stories.  

Awardees are encouraged to stay up to date on the solar office’s news by signing up for the office newsletter and following the social media sites listed below. Awardees are encouraged to retweet, like, and share Energy Department social media posts and promote content using hashtags, @mentions, etc., in social media activities.   

SETO Website:energy.gov/solar-office   

SETO Newsletter:energy.gov/eere/solar/solar-newsletter   

Twitter: @ENERGY @eeregov   

Facebook:facebook.com/energygov 

Instagram: @ENERGY  

YouTube:youtube.com/user/USdepartmentofenergy  

Flickr: flickr.com/photos/departmentofenergy 

Partner Videos  

CREATING VIDEO CONTENT  

When creating a video about an Energy Department–funded project, to avoid the appearance of endorsement by the Energy Department, it should be clear that the project is from an Energy Department partner and that the Department did not create the video. When creating the video:  

• Please ensure high-quality production and accurate content.  
• Be careful not to include personally identifiable information, such as license plates, name tags, addresses, etc.  
• Avoid shots with any prominent corporate logos, including those of non-partners. Incidental logos in footage are OK.  
• Make sure that any workers shown are using proper safety equipment.  
• Do not use copyrighted content, including images, footage, and music.

FUNDING ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

For proper attribution, please include the following statement in the video at the beginning and/or end when featuring partner logos and/or funders:  

This video was created by [ORGANIZATION NAME] with support from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office. 

In addition, the office suggests adding the following statement as a caption to the video and/or as a part of the webpage text directly following the video:  

This video was created by [ORGANIZATION NAME] with support from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office. This video is intended for educational purposes only and may be used or redistributed for noncommercial purposes, provided credit is given to [ ORGANIZATION NAME] and content is not altered. 

CAPTIONS AND TEXT VERSIONS

When creating videos and digital media, it’s important to remember to make your content accessible to people with disabilities, as required by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. This means you must write alternative text for images and include captions and text versions of visual media.  

A text version is a detailed transcript that is often posted as a separate content page. The text version typically includes all spoken language, a description of all important events and actions that occur in the file, and anything displayed visually in the file, such as words or symbols. This page is then linked beneath the embedded video. View an example.  

Captions should also be uploaded as a separate caption file on your video-hosting site. The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy does not recommend using a video provider’s automatic captioning service, such as YouTube’s, because the results are often inaccurate. 

General Electric (GE) Research 

GE Researchers Developing Advanced PV Inverter Technology to Support More Reliable, Resilient Solar Grid Integration  

• Developing new grid-forming inverter controls to handle higher amounts of solar power while improving grid stability 
• Plans to deploy and test new controls with GE Renewable Energy’s commercial PV LV5 inverter platform 
• Inverter improvements will support nation’s increasingly distributed, renewable-intensive grid network 

February 6, 2020, NISKAYUNA, NY – GE Research, the central technology development arm for the General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), has been awarded $4.2 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to help develop and deploy advanced grid-forming photovoltaic (PV) inverter control technologies that can reliably support higher amounts of solar power on the grid. This work keeps pace with the nation’s changing electric grid system, which is getting more energy from distributed and renewable sources.  

Today, wind and solar inverters connected to the grid depend upon existing voltage and frequency levels to deliver power. This is different from traditional generators, like gas and steam turbines, which dictate, or form, the voltage and frequency levels at which the grid operates.  

The development of “grid-forming” controls will allow wind and solar inverters to form voltage and frequency levels like traditional generators, creating an opportunity for greater and more resilient integration of these resources into the grid. 

“When it comes to solar and other renewable resources, all roads lead through the inverter,” said Maozhong Gong, Senior Engineer, Electric Power Technologies, GE Research. “As the nation’s grid sees more electricity from the sun and wind, it will require advanced inverters to maintain reliability.”  

Gong added, “As part of this project, we will develop and field-test advanced grid-forming controls that enable many distributed resources to deliver reliable and resilient power like traditional generators do. We will test and validate these new technologies utilizing GE Renewable Energy’s commercial PV LV5 inverter platform. The goal is to have a solution ready to commercially deploy and implement to support the nation’s increasing solar power portfolio.”   

Gong explained that while grid-forming inverter control technology is not new, the big challenge is enabling so many distributed grid-forming inverter resources to act together like traditional generators without causing stability issues. The team will address this with a holistic solution that includes advanced grid-forming controls, system modeling and analysis, and extensive tests and validation.  

According to the most recent data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. renewable electricity generation doubled from 382 million megawatt-hours (MWh) in 2008 to 742 million MWh in 2018. Solar generation has increased nearly 50 times over that same period, from 2 million MWh to 96 million MWh. 

This year, the EIA says solar and wind will account for 76% of all planned capacity additions. This growth is giving rise to inverter-dominated grids that will require more advanced technologies to ensure grid stability.  

GE Research was selected as a part of the Solar Energy Technologies Office Fiscal Year 2019 funding program. For its project, Gong will lead a multi-disciplinary team of electric power and electrical controls experts to develop advanced control technologies for PV inverters that can support increasing solar power loads on the grid. The team will develop controls for individual and clusters of grid-forming PV inverters to improve grid stability under various conditions and field-test them in GE’s commercial PV inverter.  

As part of its $4.2 million cooperative award from SETO, GE and its partners will contribute a cost share of $1.4 million, bringing the total funding for the project to $5.6 million.  

About the Solar Energy Technologies Office  

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office supports early-stage research and development to improve the affordability, performance, and value of solar technologies on the grid. Learn more at energy.gov/solar-office.  

About GE Research 

GE Research is GE’s innovation powerhouse where research meets reality. We are a world-class team of scientific, engineering and marketing minds working at the intersection of physics and markets, physical and digital technologies, and across a broad set of industries to deliver world-changing innovations and capabilities for our customers. To learn more, visit our website at https://www.ge.com/research/. 

University of Utah  

Enhancing power supply resilience to first responders  

University of Utah engineer receives $4.4 million grant to develop management system for power distribution systems  

Apr 2, 2019 - If a city experiences a major power outage due to a natural disaster or a cyberattack, it is vital to bring back power as soon as possible for first responders and critical infrastructure.  

University of Utah electrical and computer engineering assistant professor Masood Parvania and his team at his Utah Smart Energy Laboratory (U-Smart) have received a three-year, $4.4 million research award from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to advance solar energy’s role in strengthening the resilience of the U.S. electricity grid. This project will develop an automated resilience management system (ARMS) to enhance the city’s power grid in case of a power outage.  

“It is critical to ensure resilience of power supply to emergency services and first responses, such as hospitals, after a major power outage caused by widespread events like natural disasters,” Parvania, says. “The ARMS solution will use distributed solar photovoltaics, distributed energy resources, fault detection sensors, and distribution monitoring and switching equipment to improve the resilience of critical infrastructure and emergency centers.”  

The project partners include PacifiCorp, Utah Governor’s Office of Energy Development, Idaho National Laboratory and Washington State University.  

“In a rapidly evolving energy landscape, we are proud to see Utah’s collaborative partnerships demonstrate national leadership in energy research and planning to advance grid resilience,” said Laura Nelson, the Utah Governor’s energy advisor and executive director of the Utah Governor’s Office of Energy Development. “In Utah, our renewable portfolio is expanding, and we rank fifth nationally for installed solar capacity. This grant enables us to analyze opportunities presented through greater integration of new, intermittent resources and maintain resilience, security and affordability.”   

Rocky Mountain Power, a division of PacifiCorp, which services more than one million customers in Utah, Wyoming and Idaho, will work with the Utah Smart Energy Laboratory to test and validate the technology at multiple locations in Utah.  

“Implementation of the ARMS solution will provide the framework to substantially improve real-time information exchange with field devices and reduce the time spent to locate, isolate and restore power to emergency services and critical infrastructure,” said Rohit Nair, grid solutions manager at Rocky Mountain Power.  

The University of Utah was selected to receive this award as a part of the Energy Department’s effort to invest in new projects that enable grid operators to rapidly detect physical and cyberbased abnormalities in the power system and utilize solar generation to recover quickly from power outages.

BlueDot Photonics  

Making the next leap in solar power manufacturing  

BlueDot Photonics aims to lower the production cost of solar panels by 50% using a new high-throughput manufacturing process 

November 18, 2019, [Seattle, WA] – BlueDot Photonics, a company focused on commercializing next-generation solar panels, announces being selected to receive a $1,000,000 award from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to advance innovations in solar manufacturing. This project will accelerate the development of a new manufacturing process to produce high efficiency solar panels at a fraction of today’s costs.  

Most commercial solar panels today are about 20% efficient at converting sunlight into electricity. Although more efficient technology exists, the costs of these alternatives have been too high for broad deployment. A new class of materials, known as perovskites, have great potential to solve this problem. But a cost-effective, scalable, and reproducible manufacturing process for perovskite materials has not been identified. The team at BlueDot have invented such a process.  

“Cost is king in solar. And for the market to grow at its current rates, solar costs must continue to fall rapidly. The industry needs simple, scalable, and efficient approaches to produce panels. This project develops the technology to meet this need,” said Jared Silvia, CEO and Co-Founder of BlueDot.  

Most of the focus on perovskite solar device production has been on what’s known as solutionprocessing. Perovskite inks are printed to make a working solar cell. Although theoretically capable of high production rates, solution processing is limited by materials compatibility, reproducibility at high rates, and the safe handling of often toxic solvents. BlueDot’s manufacturing process simplifies the process. Solvents are eliminated. BlueDot’s process takes perovskite powders, vaporizes them, and redeposits the material as high-quality thin films. The flexibility of the process means the design and performance of the solar device can be tuned for a specific customer need. And it should achieve high throughput, like the rates used to make food packaging and high-performance glass. 

BlueDot Photonics was selected as a part of the Solar Energy Technologies Office Fiscal Year 2019 funding program, an effort to invest in new projects that will lower solar electricity costs, while working to boost solar manufacturing, reduce red tape, and make solar systems more resilient to cyberattack. BlueDot Photonics is one of several manufacturing innovation projects with early-stage product ideas that can lower solar costs and rapidly achieve commercialization, with an emphasis on projects that contribute to a strong U.S. solar manufacturing sector.  

A spinoff of the University of Washington, BlueDot’s core technology was originally developed in the research lab of Prof. Daniel Gamelin. CoMotion, the University of Washington’s collaborative innovation hub supported BlueDot Photonics with intellectual property management and initial funding from the CoMotion Innovation Gap Fund and the Commercialization Fellows Program.  

BlueDot Photonics is driven to realize terawatt scale deployment of solar power in the next decade and is grateful for the support and backing of the Department of Energy in its mission.  

About BlueDot Photonics  

BlueDot Photonics is accelerating the deployment of next-generation solar technology by developing simple, cost-effective solutions to improve solar panel performance and durability. BlueDot is based in Washington State and is a spin-out of the University of Washington. Learn more at bluedotphotonics.com  

About the Solar Energy Technologies Office The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office supports early-stage research and development to improve the affordability, reliability, and performance of solar technologies on the grid. Learn more at energy.gov/solar-office.

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and General Electric (GE)

SwRI and GE Design and Operate the Highest Temperature sCO2 Turbine in the World  

April 8, 2019 — A team of Southwest Research Institute and General Electric (GE) engineers have designed, built and tested the highest temperature supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) turbine in the world. The turbine was developed with $6.8 million of funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO), in addition to $3 million from commercial partners GE Research, Thar Energy, Electric Power Research Institute, Aramco Services Company and Navy Nuclear Laboratory. Additionally, the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) Full-  

Spectrum Optimized Conversion and Utilization of Sunlight (FOCUS) program provided financial support and extended the test program to validate advanced thermal seals.  

“The full 10 megawatt turbine is the size of a desk and yields the highest power density of any industrial turbine, rivaled only by the turbopumps used on the space shuttle engines,” said Dr. Jeffrey Moore, a mechanical engineer at SwRI and the principal investigator of the project. “This will not only improve concentrated solar power plant efficiency but also improve the efficiency of fossil and nuclear power plants, as well as lower the cost of waste heat recovery and energy storage.” This small but powerful turbine can withstand the tough operating conditions of concentrated solar power (CSP) plants and is highly scalable, to as much as 450 MW. This technology could result in a two to four percent efficiency increase for fossil plants, reducing CO2 emissions equivalent to 14 million cars.  

CSP plants use mirrors to concentrate solar energy to drive turbines, which generate electricity using a working fluid, typically steam, at high pressures and temperatures. Achieving the conditions needed for sCO2-based systems required the SwRI team to overcome a number of significant engineering challenges.  

Over the past five years, the SwRI team worked with SETO and their collaborators to create a multistage axial flow sCO2 hot gas turbo-expander. Collaborator GE Research contributed significantly to the turbine’s design, especially in the creation of the turbine’s rotor.  

The axial turbine expands high-pressure sCO2 gas to produce enough power to drive the compressor and generator that create electricity in CSP plants. These turbo-expanders must operate at temperatures greater than 1,300°F and pressures over 3,600 psi under a wide range of load conditions. They must also maintain high efficiency, a fast start-up time and the ability to handle rapid swings in transient heat input. Tested in custom-built high-pressure sCO2 test loop, the turbine met all mechanical and performance objectives, including full temperature, pressure and speed.  

“Most conventional CSP systems operate at a thermal efficiency of 35 to 40 percent. The newly designed turbine with the sCO2 power cycle can approach a 50 percent efficiency,” Moore said. “In addition to more efficient and cost-effective power, the new turbine will also allow CSP plants to be more economically competitive with fossil fuel power plants.”  

A variation of the turbine will be incorporated into the Supercritical Transformational Electric Power (STEP) 10 megawatt demonstration plant, a $119 million sCO2 pilot plant currently under construction at SwRI’s headquarters in San Antonio. Developed through a collaborative partnership between Gas Technology Institute (GTI),SwRI and GE and funded by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, STEP will demonstrate a fully integrated sCO2 power plant that generates power at higher efficiency and lower costs with a smaller carbon footprint than conventional plants.  

“We’re hoping to prove that we can operate at scale with good safety and control systems,” said Engineer Douglas Hofer, who guided the turbine development at GE Research headquarters in Niskayuna, New York.