U.S. Department of Energy's Solar America Initiative - Research and Development for Advanced Integrated Inverter and Energy Management Technologies - April 19, 2007

Workshop Purpose and Scope

The objective of the Solar America Initiative (SAI) is to achieve market competitiveness for solar electricity, also known as photovoltaics (PV), in the United States by 2015 through government partnerships with industry, universities, laboratories, states, and/or other public entities. The SAI is a Presidential Initiative that has an overall mission of initiating widespread commercialization of clean solar energy technologies to reduce the nation's dependence on fossil fuels while also improving the environment.

To help meet the aggressive goals of SAI, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is holding a workshop for interested parties to identify and prioritize lists of potential inverter and energy management research topics for inclusion in a proposed funding opportunity announcement (FOA) directed primarily toward U.S. companies. This FOA is currently planned to be entitled "Research and Development for Advanced Integrated Inverter and Energy Management Technologies." It is expected to target dramatic improvements in inverter and energy management technologies for solar electricity production. Achieving these goals will require quantum-leap improvements in inverter and energy management technologies that are expected to impact the solar market in the near term and achieve the goals of the SAI. DOE currently plans to release the FOA in June 2007, but the specific dates are to be determined.

The major goal of this FOA is to support projects directed at improving the reliability and reducing the costs of inverters and control and energy management systems in order to reduce the cost of energy from the entire PV system. Potential topics for workshop discussion include integrated circuitries, advanced thermal management, advanced transient overvoltage protection, micro-grid-ready controls, replacement of unreliable components, integration with storage or UPS, compatibility with buildings applications, communications options, customer-friendly energy monitoring, reduction in parts and installation steps, standards compliance, innovative packaging, self diagnostics, and incorporation of other new enabling technologies. This list of seed topics is not meant to be a list of topics for the FOA. It is simply meant to list potential topics that may appear for discussion during the workshop. DOE considers the priorities that are developed from this workshop to be the key ingredients for the FOA.

The workshop will be open to the public. The key mechanism used to accomplish the objective of identifying research priorities will be parallel breakout sessions held during the day. There will be two groups holding simultaneous breakout sessions. One group will discuss, develop, and prioritize potential research topics for innovative inverters, while the second group will do the same for energy management technologies. Because these two topics are so intertwined by technology and applications issues, the two groups will come together in the afternoon to prioritize a combined research topic list and ensure that no overlap issues have been overlooked.

Workshop Schedule

1:00	Introduction to the workshop (Dan Ton)
1:15	Inverter and Energy Management projects funded in SAI's TPPs (Craig Cornelius)
1:30	Funding Opportunity Announcement overview and the award process for financial assistance (DOE/GO Contracting Officer)
1:45	Parallel breakout sessions divided into two sessions
4:00	Joint session to compare and comment on list of innovative inverter and energy management topics
4:45	Discussion of any remaining issues and questions
5:00	Adjourn

Facilitation of the two breakout groups and subsequent total group sessions will be as follows:

Dan Ton — Advanced Inverters
Ed Pollock/Jerry Dion — Energy Management
Dan Ton and Ed Pollock/Jerry Dion — Combined prioritization in afternoon group of Innovative Inverters and Energy Management R&D topics.

Workshop Participation Expectations

This workshop is intended to provide the opportunity for the public, U.S. industry, and academic community, etc., to communicate to DOE their opinions and priorities in the area of innovative inverter and energy management technologies. Accordingly, workshop participants are expected to play a contributing role in the breakout groups in which research topics are discussed and prioritized. Government participation will take the form of facilitation and data capture. The workshop will therefore provide an important opportunity for the external community to influence DOE decisions on the contents of the planned FOA.

To maintain focus and permit substantive dialog, participation from organizations will be limited to two representatives. Organizations are asked to select representatives based on their ability to contribute to dialogue in the breakout session areas listed in the previous section of this announcement. Overall participation is limited to the first 100 confirmed registrations.

Workshop Logistics

Representatives designated as participants in the workshop must register for the meeting by April 18, 2007, and indicate the breakout group that fits their interests. This can be done by e-mailing leslie.thompson@hq.doe.gov or calling Leslie Thompson at 804-658-1924. DOE will control the size of the breakout groups. However, every effort will be made to place participants in the group they most prefer as group size permits.

Hotel Information

The Funding Opportunity Workshop will be held at the same hotel as and following the Solar Energy Technologies Program Review Meeting. It will be held at the Marriott Renaissance Denver Hotel in Denver, Colorado. This hotel is approximately 6 miles northeast of downtown Denver and 19 miles southwest of Denver International Airport.

Marriott Renaissance Denver Hotel
3801 Quebec Street
Denver, Colorado 80207
Phone: 303-399-7500, Fax: 303-321-1966

Reservations

A block of rooms has been reserved for the nights of Monday, April 16, through Thursday, April 19, 2007 for the Program Review Meeting. No rooms have been reserved specifically for the workshop.
The conference rate is $127 (plus tax) or prevailing per diem rate per night for single or double occupancy. These rates will be honored until the room block is filled or until the cut-off date of March 30, 2007, whichever comes first. Reservations received after this date will be accepted on a space available, rate available basis.

To reserve your room for the Program Review Meeting, contact the Marriott Renaissance Denver Hotel at 303-399-7500. Be sure to state that you are with the NREL — Solar Review 2007.

Questions and Further Information

Questions on registration or logistics should be directed to Mamatha Gowda at 440-250-0629 or mgowda@mcneiltech.com.