Tribal Clean Energy

Department of Energy to Award Over $6 Million for Clean Energy Projects on Tribal Lands

July 21, 2011

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced 31 tribal energy projects to receive $6.3 million over two years as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's ongoing efforts to support tribal energy development and continue strengthening the partnership with Tribal Nations. These competitively selected projects will allow Native American Tribes to advance clean energy within their communities by developing strategic energy plans, expanding the skills and knowledge of tribal members, and improving the energy efficiency of their buildings. These investments will help tribal communities to save money and reduce energy waste, expand the use of clean energy technologies, and promote economic development.

"Tribal Nations are well-positioned to take advantage of the benefits of clean energy and energy efficient technologies," said Secretary Chu. "Projects such as these will save energy and money, create long-term clean energy jobs, and spur economic development in tribal communities nationwide."
The more than $6 million in DOE funding will go toward 31 projects selected for negotiation of award in three project areas including over $2.1 million for energy efficiency feasibility studies, over $2.1 million for first-steps projects, and over $2 million for energy efficiency installation projects on tribal lands. DOE announced the availability of funding for these tribal energy projects in January. Another group of projects to receive funding for development and deployment of tribal renewable energy projects will be announced later this summer.

The awards cover the following areas:

$2.17 Million for Feasibility Studies – Nine Tribal projects will receive $2.17 million to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings. By conducting energy assessments to identify cost-effective building upgrades, recipients can develop plans to realize significant savings on their energy bills. When completed, the upgrades identified in the energy assessments could reduce energy use by at least 30 percent in each building.

$2.14 Million for First Steps Planning – Seventeen Tribal energy projects will receive $2.14 million for strategic planning, energy options analysis, energy organization development, and workforce development as the first steps toward a clean energy future. Several of the awardees will develop tribal strategic energy plans, enabling them to evaluate their current energy use and indigenous energy resources. Some of the projects also support the development of tribal energy organizations like utilities, energy offices, tribal committees, or other organizations to implement the selected Tribe's long-term energy plans and create opportunities for the deployment of clean energy projects. Others projects will help Tribes to explore development and deployment options for energy efficient and renewable technologies. Workforce development projects will provide clean energy training and workshops to tribal staff, leaders, and members, and train and certify tribal members to conduct energy assessments.

$2 Million for Installation Projects – Five projects on tribal lands will receive $2 million for the installation of energy efficient upgrades in their buildings that will help Tribes reduce electricity or heating and cooling costs by 30% or more.

Download detailed descriptions of all 31 tribal energy projects.
These grants are administered by DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), which in coordination with the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs (IE) under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 Title V authorizations, provides financial and technical assistance to Indian Tribes for the evaluation and development of their energy resources, implementation of energy efficiency to reduce energy use, and provides education and training to help build the knowledge and skills essential for sustainable energy projects. Learn more about EERE's support of tribal energy projects and DOE's Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs.

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NREL News

Solar Research Earns Three Prestigious R&D 100 Awards

June 22, 2011

A technique to turn silicon into ink, a faster way to assess solar cells, and a better furnace for heating solar cells – all developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory – have been named among this year’s most significant innovations by R&D Magazine.
The three prestigious awards bring to 50 the number of R&D 100 awards that NREL has won since 1982.

The three NREL winners all originated in basic technology research and now are on the brink of making huge differences in the marketplace.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu noted that 36 of the 100 awards were given for research in the nation’s federal labs and facilities. "The cutting-edge research and development done in our national labs (and sites) is helping to meet our energy challenges, strengthen our national security and enhance our economic competitiveness. It is gratifying to see their work recognized once again.”

Turning silicon into ink saves money, improves quality


NREL scientists led by Photovoltaic Incubator Subcontract Technical Monitor Richard Mitchell teamed with Innovalight, Inc. to invent silicon Ink, a liquid form of silicon, and develop it for use in solar cells.

This marks the first time that silicon has been sold in the marketplace as a liquid. With the Innovalight Silicon Ink process , a screen printer is added to the manufacturing line, which produces an immediate increase in solar cell efficiency by allowing lighter doping thus enhancing response to the blue portion of the spectrum.

The new product boosts the bottom line of a typical solar production plant by 20 percent, which for an average-size factory is $100 million, while boosting the efficiency of the cells by about 6 percent.

Faster assessment of solar-cell quality

NREL scientists teamed with Tau Science Corporation to develop “Flash Quantum Efficiency System for Solar Cells,” a way to assess the quality of solar cells at a speed that is about 1,000 times faster than previous methods.

The instrument – Tau markets it as FlashQE™ -- uses light-emitting diodes, high-speed electronics and mathematical algorithms to measure the quantum efficiency of solar cells orders of magnitude faster than before. What used to take 20 minutes – and therefore could be done only with random samples of cells – now can be done in a second, said NREL Senior Scientist David Young.

That means every single cell on a manufacturing line can be assessed and provide much needed process feedback information to the line and each cell can be sorted by its spectral response. Cells that respond best to, say, red light can be connected together to form a solar module. That way, a mismatched blue-response cell on a module won’t put the brakes on all the work the red-response cells are doing. And that means more efficient conversion of photons into electricity at sunrise and sunset when the red wavelengths predominate.

NREL’s Optical Cavity Furnace bolsters efficiency, lowers cost

The NREL Optical Cavity Furnace could revolutionize the solar cell manufacturing industry in the U.S. by producing higher quality and higher efficiency solar cells at a fraction of the cost of conventional, thermal ovens. The new furnace, which uses photons to uniformly heat crystalline solar cells and semiconductor materials, has increased the efficiency of the cells by 3 to 4 percent, said NREL Principal Scientist Bhushan Sopori. And it costs 75 percent less than an industrial thermal or infrared furnace.

The Optical Cavity Furnace, licensed to AOS Solar Inc., uses light enclosed within a highly reflective chamber to achieve a level of temperature uniformity that is impossible with other furnaces. It virtually eliminates energy loss by lining the cavity walls with ceramic materials of high reflectance and high thermal insulation, and by using an optimal geometric design.

AOS Solar manufactured the furnace, which the company branded as the Optical Processing Furnace, and it is operating at NREL’s Process Development Integration Lab, noted AOS CEO Anikara Rangappan.

"The awards demonstrate how NREL research produces market relevant results. These investments create American jobs while at the same time advancing our goals toward a clean energy future," NREL Director Dan Arvizu said.

More on NREL's photovoltaics research can be found at http://www.nrel.gov/pv/.

49th year of Awards for Innovation

A full list of this year’s winners is available at www.rdmag.com.

The winners represent a cross-section of industry, academia, private research firms, and government labs, according to a statement by the magazine’s editors. Winning technologies are used in medical, industrial, research, consumer, and manufacturing applications.
Since 1963, the R&D 100 Awards have identified revolutionary technologies newly introduced to the market. Many of these have become household names, helping shape everyday life for many Americans.

Winners of the R&D 100 Awards are selected by an independent judging panel and the editors of R&D Magazine. The publication and its online portal serve research scientists, engineers, and other technical staff members at high tech industrial companies and public and private laboratories around the world.
Winners will be recognized at the R&D 100 Awards Banquet on Oct. 13 in Orlando, Fla.
NREL is the Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by The Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.
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Visit NREL online at www.nrel.gov

DOE & New Solar Tech

June 17, 2011

DOE Offers $150 Million Conditional Commitment for a Loan Guarantee to Support Breakthrough Solar Manufacturing Process

Transformational Technology Could Cut Production Costs of Silicon Wafers in Half

Washington D.C. - U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced the offer of a conditional commitment for a $150 million loan guarantee to 1366 Technologies, Inc. for the development of a multicrystalline wafer manufacturing project.  The project will be capable of producing approximately 700 to 1,000 megawatts (MW) of silicon-based wafers annually using a revolutionary manufacturing process called Direct Wafer.  The innovative process could reduce manufacturing costs of the wafers by approximately 50 percent, dramatically cutting the cost of solar power.  Phase 1 of the project will be located in Lexington, Massachusetts and is expected to generate 70 permanent jobs and 50 construction jobs.  The company is evaluating site locations for another planned phase, which they anticipate will create hundreds of additional jobs.

"This project is a game-changer that could dramatically lower the cost of photovoltaic solar cells.  It is exactly the kind of innovation that puts America at the forefront of the global clean energy race," said Secretary Chu.  "As global demand for solar cells increases, this kind of technology will help the U.S. increase its market share and be more competitive with other countries such as China, which currently accounts for 60 percent of the world supply of multicrystalline wafers."

The original development of the company's Direct Wafering technology was supported with a $4 million grant from DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy program and a $3 million grant from DOE's Solar Energy Technology Program.  The innovative manufacturing process condenses four manufacturing steps into a single, low cost step and greatly reduces silicon waste by forming individual wafers directly from a pool of molten silicon.  A thin sheet of silicon freezes inside the Direct Wafer furnace and is then removed and laser-trimmed to size.  At full production, the entire wafer formation process is completed in just a fraction of the time relative to conventional batch processing which can take up to three days.  The company's revolutionary one-step process requires ninety percent less energy and results in an industry-standard product that can be used by any standard multicrystalline cell manufacturer.

The Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office administers three separate programs:  the Title XVII Section 1703 and Section 1705 loan guarantee programs, and the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program.   The loan guarantee programs support the deployment of commercial technologies along with innovative technologies that avoid, reduce, or sequester greenhouse gas emissions, while ATVM supports the development of advanced vehicle technologies.  Under all three programs, DOE has issued loans, loan guarantees or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees totaling over $33 billion to support 35 clean energy projects across the U.S.  DOE has also issued conditional commitments or loan guarantees to support numerous other projects, including four of the world's largest solar generation facilities, two geothermal projects, the world's largest wind farm and the nation's first new nuclear power plant in three decades.  For more information, please visit the Loan Programs Office.