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Photovoltaic Technology Pre-Incubator

The Photovoltaic (PV) Technology Pre-Incubator project helps small solar businesses transition from concept verification of a solar PV technology to the development of a commercially viable PV prototype by 2012.

The goals of the project include promoting grid parity for PV technologies, transitioning innovative PV technologies into the prototype stage, and developing prototype PV concepts with manufacturing costs of less than $1/watt.

Background

The PV Technology Pre-Incubator project complements the PV Technology Incubator project, which was launched in 2007. While both support small businesses, each focuses on a different phase of the research and development (R&D) process. The Pre-Incubator project focuses on moving ideas from concept verification to commercially viable prototype, and the PV Incubator project targets accelerating prototype and pre-commercial technologies toward pilot and full-scale production.

The PV Technology Pre-Incubator targets the R&D advances needed to overcome barriers to creating an innovative and viable PV device or module prototype that is suitable for manufacturing scaleup. Technology neutral, this project encompasses innovative PV cell and module technologies suitable for residential rooftop, commercial rooftop, and utility markets.

Awardees

DOE will invest $6 million in the following new PV Technology Pre-Incubator projects. The investment is part of $117.6 million in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding, which was announced in May 2009. These project partners will provide nearly $3 million in matching funding. The project is administered through DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory. See NREL press release.

1366 Technologies, Inc. ($500,000)
Lexington, Massachusetts

  • Develop a kerfless wafering technique for the production of silicon wafers to reduce costs through a more efficient production of silicon wafers.

Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. ($315,037)
Littleton, Colorado

  • Develop ZnMgO window layers enabling high-performance mid-bandgap CuInGaSe2 on polyimide modules with the potential to increase the performance of the CuInGaSe2 device and take a step towards the realization of CuInGaSe2–based tandem cells.

Banyan Energy, Inc. ($500,000)
Kensington, California

  • Develop a flat Aggregated Total Internal Reflection (ATIR) optic for moderate concentrating PV systems that will result in a high optical efficiency concentrator with a uniquely low profile.

Crystal Solar, Inc. ($500,000)
Santa Clara, California

  • Develop thin crystal silicon solar cells on ceramic substrates to reduce the manufacturing cost of silicon by reducing the losses associated with wafer generation and reducing the thickness of the resulting silicon wafer.

EPIR Technologies, Inc. ($500,000)
Bolingbrook, Illinois

  • Develop a high efficiency single-crystal CdTe solar cell to determine the viability of a cadmium telluride-based solution to high-efficiency concentrating PV solar cells.

International Solar Electric Technology, Inc. ($456,006)
Chatsworth, California

  • Develop low-cost, monolithically integrated, printed CuInGaSe2 modules on flexible stainless steel substrates to create high-performance, flexible CuInGaSe2 with low-cost manufacturing techniques and the benefits of monolithic module integration.

Lightwave Power, Inc. ($450,000)
Cambridge, Massachusetts

  • Develop, with Iowa State University, a novel roll-to-roll photonic-enhanced thin film solar cell that will significantly raise performance levels through increased long wavelength absorption and result in increased current collection.

Luna Innovations, Inc. ($499,994)
Danville, Virginia

  • Investigate new acceptor molecules for the development of improved high-efficiency organic PV cells to achieve record organic PV solar cell efficiencies.

MicroLink Devices ($500,000)
Niles, Illinois

  • Develop high-efficiency, low-cost, multijunction solar cells based on epitaxial liftoff and wafer bonding to create an innovative cell architecture with the potential to surpass the current state-of-the-art in high-efficiency multijunction solar cells.

Semprius, Inc. ($500,000)
Durham, North Carolina

  • Optimize the primary and secondary optics for a transfer-printed microcell-based concentrating PV module that combines the benefits of unique-to-solar manufacturing techniques with the performance and operational benefits of microcell concentrating PV.

SpectraWatt, Inc. ($500,000)
Hillsboro, Oregon

  • Improve silicon solar cell efficiency through the use of an additive nano-structured material to increase the performance of standard mc-Si solar cells through increased current collection in a way that does not require modifications to existing manufacturing process streams.

TiSol, LLC ($499,100)
Pasadena, California

  • Develop a viable technology for thin-film deposition in open atmosphere, using a unique flame synthesis methodology, to reduce the cost and to increase the deployment of dye-sensitized solar cells through a reel-to-reel fabrication of layers within the dye cell.

Vanguard Solar, Inc. ($500,000)
Sudbury, Massachusetts

  • Develop a novel nanostructured II/VI semiconductor-based thin-film PV cell that will be an easily manufactured thin-film device with low cost and high efficiency.