$9M Offered for Breakthrough PV Projects

The US Energy Department is offering more than $9 million in funding for breakthrough research and development projects that will advance the reliability and durability of solar photovoltaic technologies. This funding opportunity will support projects aimed at improving product testing and increasing module quality and performance by providing the solar energy community and investors with access to improved predictive models, relevant accelerated testing techniques, and more reliable PV modules that will ultimately increase PV system investments.

Eligible projects will examine the performance of PV modules and develop accelerated tests to better understand how solar modules change over time and achieve improved lifetime performance of the modules. Key focus areas will include using physics and chemistry and advanced data analysis to gain a better understanding of why solar modules fail, developing improved product tests and new rapid testing techniques or instruments – either outdoors after installation or during the manufacturing process – that evaluate module reliability, and improving data models to predict performance over time.