Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced more than $145 million for projects to help shape the next generation of solar energy technologies and ensure that the United States remains a leader in this global market. Sixty-nine projects in 24 states will accelerate research and development to increase efficiency, lower costs, and advance cutting-edge technologies. Funded through DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the projects will also improve materials, manufacturing processes, and supply chains for a wide range of photovoltaic (PV) solar cells and components of solar energy systems. Some of these investments also support efforts that will shorten the overall timeline from prototype to production and streamline building codes, zoning laws, permitting rules, and business processes for installing solar energy systems.

The six categories of projects announced include Extreme Balance of System Hardware Cost Reductions, Foundational Program to Advance Cell Efficiency, Solar Energy Grid Integration Systems, Transformational PV Science and Technology, Reducing Market Barriers and Non-Hardware Balance of System Costs and SunShot Incubator.

NC State is the sole recipient within the state of North Carolina to be receiving funding for any of the project categories.

NC State’s award is part of the SunShot Incubator category which will fund two different tiers of transformational projects. The first accelerates development of new technologies from concept to commercial viability. The second level of funding supports efforts that shorten the overall timeline from laboratory scale development to pilot line manufacture. The SunShot Incubator Program is an expansion of DOE’s successful PV Technology Incubator Program, launched in 2007, which to date has funded $60 million in projects that have been leveraged into $1.3 billion in private investment.

"America is in a world race to produce cost-competitive renewable energy that can reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, create manufacturing jobs across the nation, and improve our energy security," said Secretary Chu. "The projects announced today under DOE’s SunShot Initiative will spur American innovation to help reduce the costs of clean, renewable solar energy and re-establish U.S. global leadership in this fast growing industry."  The SunShot Initiative seeks to make solar energy systems more cost-competitive, without long-term subsidies, by reducing the cost of these systems about 75% by the end of the decade. The achievement of the SunShot Initiative goals will encourage rapid, widespread adoption of solar energy systems across the United States.

SunShot is driving innovation in the way solar energy systems are conceived, designed, manufactured, and installed. The awards announced today will target improvements across the research, development, and demonstration pipeline, from next generation technologies 7-10 years away from commercial readiness, to scientific and technological improvements which can be rapidly implemented within 5 years. The programs will create entirely new and more economical approaches to collecting solar energy and tackle fundamental challenges to ramp up use of these renewable energy technologies.

DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy invests in clean energy technologies that strengthen the economy, protect the environment, and reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil. Learn more about the SunShot Initiative and DOE’s efforts to expand safe, readily available, and inexpensive solar energy across the nation by the end of the decade.