Solar Energy Technologies Office Lab Call FY2025-27

Project Name: A Metrology Platform Toward a Standardized Third-Party Heliostat Evaluation
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO   
Principal Investigator: Rebecca Mitchell
Project Summary: Power tower concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) uses heliostats, or mirrors, that track the sun in two dimensions to focus sunlight on a receiver to be stored as thermal energy and used to generate electricity. The precision demanded by CSP, with its significant solar concentration ratios, presents challenges for traditional optical measurement techniques, especially given the expansive outdoor settings of CSP solar fields. In this project, the team aims to establish a comprehensive, third-party, heliostat evaluation platform to address industry gaps in CSP metrology. The team will acquire and deploy metrology tools for solar field/heliostat measurements, standardize procedures through a facility operation manual, and conduct a round-robin demonstration with commercial heliostat prototypes.

Project Name: Addressing Failures in Molten Nitrate Thermal Energy Storage Tanks through the Design and Fabrication Optimization of the Tank Floor and Experimental Validation
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Julian D. Osorio
Project Summary: Failures in molten salt hot thermal energy storage tanks in commercial concentrating solar power (CSP) plants is a major concern and can cause significant economic loss and can pose challenges for adoption of CSP technology. This project builds on the knowledge and experience of the project team in failure analysis, operation, modeling, design, and fabrication of molten salt tanks to optimize the design, fabrication, and implementation procedures of the tank floor to increase the tank reliability and achieve a service lifetime of more than 30 years.

Project Name: Advanced Solar Generation and Resiliency Deployment (ASGARD) Front End Engineering Design Study
Lab:  Sandia National Laboratories
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Principal Investigator: Joshua S. Stein
Project Summary: This project is working to reduce major sources of uncertainty in the cost, design, performance, permitting, operations and maintenance, and value proposition of a particle-based concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) and photovoltaics (PV) hybrid power plant being considered on Kirkland Air Force Base (KAFB) as part of the Net Zero strategy. This will provide solar power developers with sufficient information on which to base a formal commercial bid to construct and operate such a plant. Studies completed for this project will accelerate the commercial viability of third generation (Gen3) CSP technologies by defining a competitive value proposition for KAFB, reducing uncertainties in design and cost estimates, performing initial site characterization, permitting, and preparing supporting documentation for an open request for proposals.

Project Name: Elevating SolTrace’s Capabilities for the Next Generation of Concentrating Solar Thermal Analysis
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO 
Principal Investigator: Bill Hamilton
Project Summary: SolTrace is an open-source Monte Carlo ray tracing software developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory that can characterize concentrating solar thermal (CST) collector optical performance and is CST technology agnostic. In this project, the team aims to optimize SolTrace’s source code to be computationally efficient and enable graphics processing unit parallelization, which will allow users to simulate commercial-scale CST optical problems faster than has ever been possible with open-source software.

Project Name: Long Duration Particle Wear Testing for High Temperature CSP Components
Lab: Sandia National Laboratories
Location: Albuquerque, NM 
Principal Investigator: Matthew Sandlin
Project Summary: Using solid particles as energy storage and heat transfer media is seen as one of the most practical ways to achieve the temperature targets needed to drive advanced, high-efficiency power cycles and generate green fuels via solar thermochemistry while simultaneously driving down the cost of thermal energy storage. One of the biggest engineering challenges of next-generation concentrated solar-thermal power (CSP) plants is the handling of bulk materials at elevated temperatures. The goal of this project is to investigate particle abrasion and erosion at high temperatures for CSP-relevant materials and use that data to validate numerical models that can predict material lifetimes for given temperature and particle flow regimes.

Project Name: Measurements and Modeling of Wind Impact on G3P3 Falling Particle Receivers (MWiFPR)
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO 
Principal Investigator: Shashank Yellapantula
Project Summary: A new pilot plant, known as Generation 3 Particle Pilot Plant (G3P3), is being commissioned at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility using falling particle technology. The two critical factors impacting the levelized cost of energy from this technology are advective heat losses and particle attrition. In this project, the joint team from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories plans to use a unique experimental-simulation methodology to quantify advective heat losses and particle attrition at the upcoming third generation tower at Sandia. This will be accomplished by measuring the airflow speed and direction along with particle mass flux at and around the aperture window. Additionally, high-fidelity simulations with data assimilation from measurements will be used to accurately estimate losses in thermal efficiency.

Project Name: SiC-Si Ceramic Moving Particle Bed Heat Exchanger (MBHX): Scale-Up, Enhanced Capacity and Reliability
Lab: Argonne National Laboratory
Location: Lemont, IL
Principal Investigator: Dileep Singh
Project Summary: In concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) plant configuration, heat exchangers are required for energy transfer between the receiver or the thermal energy storage system and the power conversion cycle. As the operating temperatures of a CSP plant increase, serious material degradation issues arise. At temperatures higher than 700°C, current high temperature alloys undergo material degradation including creep, corrosion, and erosion. In this regard, advanced materials and novel design and manufacturing approaches are needed for next-generation CSP plant components. This project aims to continue development of the silicon carbide-based MBHX using a binder jet additive manufacturing approach and address key challenges to increase the MBHX thermal duty, scale-up manufacturing processes, and ensure high performance and structural reliability.

Project Name: Solar Thermal Falling Particle Receiver Featuring Advanced Low Loss Technology (STARFALL)
Lab: Sandia National Laboratories
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Principal Investigator: Nathan Schroeder
Project Summary: This project aims to establish a cost-effective falling particle receiver (FPR) testbed that leverages a modular Generation 3 Particle Pilot Plant (G3P3) receiver system and delivers a highly efficient FPR design suitable for deployment in commercial-scale systems. The creation of this test facility will spark a renaissance in FPR research that will further drive down the cost of Gen3 CSP systems and maximize the utility and resiliency of the tower by creating a self-contained particle receiver testbed independent from other system components.

Project Name: Validated Time-Dependent Reliability Modeling for High Temperature CSP Systems
Lab: Argonne National Laboratory
Location: Lemont, IL   
Principal Investigator: Mark Messner
Project Summary: As energy efficiency, thermal energy storage, and the need to provide decarbonized process heat push CSP system temperatures higher, accurate predictions of component reliability become more crucial in designing and operating plants. At high temperatures, failure becomes nearly inevitable, meaning system designers and plant operators need a way to accurately predict the reliability of key plant components, both during initial design and later during plant operations. This project aims to develop and validate reliability models for metallic and ceramic components against quasi-component test data in supercritical carbon dioxide environments and full on-sun testing. These reliability models will be integrated into the System Advisor Model to improve the accuracy of its techno-economic analysis of CSP plant designs.

Project Name: Wind Loading on Solar Collectors
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO   
Principal Investigator: Shashank Yellapantula
Project Summary: Wind loading is a critical factor for reducing heliostat costs and maximizing heliostat field performance during operation, both of which are essential to achieve DOE’s 2030 goal of next generation concentrating solar-thermal power technology. Characterization of wind loading is identified as a high priority requirement during in-depth interviews conducted by Heliocon with heliostat developers. This project aims to generate a comprehensive collection of knowledge, datasets, tools, best practices, and standards to address the impact of wind loading on deployment, life, and performance of heliostats for a power tower system.

Core Capability Projects

Project Name: Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power Optical Facilities
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Paul Ndione
Project Summary: NREL’s Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power (CSP) Optical Facilities comprise unique tools and equipment for testing and characterizing concentrating solar optical components. This project is to ensure NREL's premier CSP Optical Facilities continue its mission in supporting more efficiently industry, academia, national laboratories, and HelioCon in the development of measurements methods, procedures, and accurate characterization to reduce market barriers, improve the performance, reduce the cost, and improve the lifetime and reliability of CSP materials, components, subsystems, and integrated concepts. In addition, NREL will be a third-party testing lab for industry owing to its new ISO 9001 Certification for the CSP Optical Facilities.

Project Name: Concentration Solar-Thermal Power (CSP) Systems Analysis
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Ty Neises
Project Summary: This core effort is focused on the development of component and system modeling tools, market research, and strategic systems analysis of current and potential concentrating solar technologies for both power and heat applications. This project will enhance the knowledge of CSP and help stakeholders advance CSP technology by identifying early entry markets for their technology.

Project Name: National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) 
Lab: Sandia National Laboratories
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Principal Investigator: Robert Keene
Project Summary: The NSTTF is a research, development, and testing site at Sandia National Laboratories. The NSTTF provides large-scale testing capabilities including a solar field with 218 heliostats with 200 feet solar tower, a 16 kilowatt-thermal solar furnace, and a 7.2 kilowatt-electric solar simulator. This core effort provides research environments and demonstration facilities for concentrating solar-thermal technologies. This project ensures the operability of the heliostat field, supports critical falling particle testing for generation 3 CSP, and enables a host of other material, component, and thermal testing abilities, which are critical to the progress of concentrating solar-thermal technologies.

Project Name: Durable and Low-Cost Multi-Use Organic Photovoltaics
Lab:  National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator:  Bryon Larson
Project Summary: This project addresses the most critical research gaps of organic photovoltaics (OPV) to help the technology move toward large-scale domestic commercialization. The team will carry out material development for high efficiency cell/module design and manufacturing development to lower costs and increase multiuse potential, and developing packaging solutions for robust operational durability of organic PV (OPV) modules outdoors. The project aims to demonstrate 25% efficient and 25-year stable OPVs that will validate the technological viability of incorporating OPV into the solar deployment portfolio to increase national competitiveness in PV and achieve 2035 solar deployment goals.

Project Name: National Lab Center for Component and Power Transfer Chain (PTC) Reliability
Lab: Sandia National Laboratories
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Principal Investigator: Laurie Burnham 
Project Summary: This project establishes the National Lab Center for Photovoltaic Balance-of-System and Power-Transfer-Chain Reliability, which will investigate and improve the quality of the electrical components that form the power-transfer chain (PTC) in a photovoltaic (PV) system. The robustness of these low-cost devices, including connectors, cables, and rapid-shutdown devices, is essential to ensure safe and efficient flow of electricity from PV modules to the grid. The team will work to identify failure mechanisms, collect and share industry-wide data, and disseminate best practices with a demonstrable reduction in PTC failure rates.

Project Name: Overcoming Performance Anxiety: Compiling and Linking Critical Datasets to Shine a Light on Distributed PV System Performance
Lab:  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Location: Berkeley, CA
Principal Investigator: Galen Barbose
Project Summary: The project aims to benchmark distributed photovoltaic (PV) performance in the United States. The team plans to gather empirical generation data from a large number of distributed PV systems operating across the country and link it with weather data and corresponding physical and socioeconomic system characteristics (such as system location, age, capacity, orientation, ownership, and host-owner demographics) to establish how distributed PV systems have been performing and which factors drive differences in performance. The analysis will provide insights to numerous stakeholders, including existing and prospective solar adopters, PV equipment manufacturers and installers, state and local PV program administrators, policymakers, consumer protection and energy justice advocates, electricity sector modelers, and grid system operators. The insights will lead to improved PV system performance, quicker energy payback, and a lower levelized cost of energy.

Project Name: PV Accelerator for Commercializing Technologies (PACT)
Lab: Sandia National Laboratories
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Principal Investigator: Joshua S. Stein
Project Summary: The PACT center aims to develop, validate, and document testing protocols capable of accurately characterizing the field performance and predicting the degradation of precommercial solar minimodules. The center will conduct extensive field-testing and serve as an objective and neutral source of information and analysis for government, investment, and finance communities. In addition to protocol development, PACT supports other DOE-funded programs by providing outdoor and indoor accelerated testing services. PACT will work directly with industry to test and verify minimodule performance and reliability in support of rapid development cycles, adapting as companies move toward commercialization.

Project Name: PV Operation and Maintenance Analytics Collaborative (PVMAC)
Lab: Sandia National Laboratories
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Principal Investigator: Marios Theristis 
Project Summary: The project establishes the PV Operation and Maintenance Analytics Collaborative (PVMAC) to bring together operation and maintenance (O&M) providers, engineering, procurement, and construction companies, asset owners and operators, and insurers to share, evaluate, and improve O&M approaches for utility-scale PV systems. PVMAC will provide independent validation, foster transparency and technical quality, and improve interoperability in O&M practices and in analytics products and services.

Project Name: PV RESOLVE (Reliable Entire-System Operations and Lifecycle Value Evaluation) Enabling and Improving Decision-Making for Operating PV Systems
Lab:  National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Joe Simon
Project Summary: This project aims to develop an open-source tool that will enable system owners, financiers, operators, and purchasers to comprehensively evaluate the implications of a variety of decision scenarios at any life stage of an operating large-scale solar system. Using the tool to support decision making for continued operation, repowering, retirement, and associated recycling, landfilling, refurbishment, repair, or reselling of components in the secondary market is projected to reduce uncertainty in financial transactions, increase system value, lower lifecycle costs of electricity, and reduce environmental impacts.

Project Name: Securing Solar Technologies through Optimization, Reliability Methods, and Modeled Systems
Lab:  Sandia National Laboratories
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Principal Investigator: Laurie Burnham
Project Summary: This multi-lab project proactively identifies and addresses the risks posed to photovoltaic (PV) installations by extreme weather. The work in this project addresses system hardening, design optimization, and best practices to increase the resilience of PV systems; predictive risk-modeling to triage the hardening and siting of PV plants based on projected increases in storm activity and community risk; post-storm assessments, which will include formal failure mode effects analysis to identify weak points; and creation and management of a central repository for storm-related data and information-sharing. 

Project Name: Vapor Transport Deposition of Formamidinium-Based Metal Halide Perovskite Solar Cells
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Axel Palmstrom 
Project Summary: This project addresses high-rate scalable manufacturing of reliable and highly efficient metal halide perovskite (MHP) photovoltaics by developing vapor transport deposition (VTD) for manufacturing of formamidinium (FA) based MHP compositions. The team will use novel methods to overcome the fracturing of organic components at high deposition rates to develop and demonstrate VTD approaches for rapid manufacturing FA-containing MHP thin films to be used for wide bandgap modules in tandem applications.

Core Capability Projects 

Project Name: III-V Photovoltaics
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Myles Steiner
Project Summary: This project focuses on reducing the costs of III-V photovoltaic (PV) cells by developing a process cycle to reuse the gallium arsenide (GaAs) wafer. The project aims to optimize controlled spalling of GaAs, a mechanical fracture technique that quickly exfoliates a thin film of semiconductor near the surface. The team will optimize techniques to smooth and re-planarize the faceted surface in preparation for regrowth, and process the exfoliated films into flexible, high-efficiency solar cells. At the end of the project, the goal is to demonstrate at least five uses of a GaAs wafer, with tandem cells demonstrating 95% or more of the baseline efficiency of approximately 27% and with a yield no less than 85% of the useable wafer area.

Project Name: Advanced Thin-Film (CdTe) Photovoltaics 
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Matthew Reese
Project Summary: Cadmium telluride (CdTe) photovoltaics (PV) is the current cost-leading PV technology, directly competing with silicon PV at scale. CdTe PV is manufactured in the United States and makes up a large fraction of U.S. deployment. The efficiency of CdTe, however, remains lower than theoretically possible, and improvements need to be made in carrier concentration, minority carrier lifetime, and interface recombination. This project improves absorber doping and defects to improve the photovoltage and reduce the voltage gap, optimize front and back contact interfaces to reduce recombination and increase carrier lifetime, and explore alternate device structures enabling bifacial devices and reducing material use.

Project Name: DOE PV Fleet Performance Data Initiative
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Chris Deline
Project Summary: This project leverages photovoltaic (PV) data to develop models and understanding of the field performance of existing and new technologies. The research team will report on field performance and degradation rates for high-efficiency silicon and more conventional technologies, develop automated analysis techniques to quantify system performance, refine the RdTools software toolkit to apply standard and validated analysis techniques to partner data, and inform data quality assurance by other software tools. Additionally, the team will collaborate with large-scale fleet owners to publish performance details for a major cross-section of deployed U.S. systems and disseminate findings and data. Improved analysis and reporting of PV field performance increases the certainty of owners and financiers that systems will perform as expected.

Project Name: Durable Module Materials Consortium (DuraMAT) 
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Teresa Barnes
Project Summary: This project manages the DuraMat Consortium, which brings together DOE national lab and university research capabilities with the photovoltaic (PV) and supply-chain industries to accelerate a sustainable, just, and equitable transition to zero carbon electricity generation by 2035. This occurs through the five core objectives: development of a central data resource for PV modules, multi-scale and multi-physics modeling, disruptive acceleration science, forensic tools for fielded modules, and materials solutions for more durable, reliable, and resilient modules. DuraMAT leverages decades of experience, expertise, and world-class facilities at the national laboratories to create a “one-stop-shop” for timely solutions to critical barriers limiting module reliability and durability. The projects within the Consortium aim to identify which materials and packaging designs will enable high energy yield modules with the potential for 50-year lifetimes and identify long-term degradation mechanisms and wear out failures.

Project Name: Hands-On Photovoltaics Experience (HOPE)
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Silvana Ovaitt
Project Summary: Hands-On Photovoltaics (PV) Experience (HOPE), is a one-week summer school held at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) each year to train graduate student PV researchers in fundamentals of PV, solar cell fabrication, and in-lab measurement methods, the PV industry, techno-economics, and field status. The program brings in students and their faculty advisors from across the United States for an in-depth, intensive program that includes hands-on lab experiences in solar cell fabrication and testing in a small-group research setting that ensures close interactions with NREL staff. This program aims to train future PV researchers and increase collaboration among the students, faculty, industry, and staff at NREL. 

Project Name: Perovskite Enabled Tandems
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Joseph Berry, Emily Warren
Project Summary: Tandem or multijunction solar cells are able to convert sunlight to electricity with greater efficiency than single junction solar cells by splitting the solar spectrum across sub-cells with different bandgaps. Combining well-established photovoltaic technologies into a single tandem architecture holds promise for dramatically increasing total cell efficiency, but substantial development is needed to address the challenges of scaling hybrid tandems from “champion cells” to interconnected large modules. This project addresses process reproducibility of the pre-commercial subcells critical to manufacturing efficient tandem modules; development of process integration technologies to couple subcells into tandem devices; improvements to the stability of metal halide perovskite-enabled tandem devices; and understanding the performance of tandem modules under realistic conditions, including developing tools to predict tandem energy yield. The work will help realize the potential of tandem technologies for utility scale electricity generation.

Project Name: PV Cell and Module Performance Testing
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Nikos Kopidakis
Project Summary: This project maintains the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Photovoltaic (PV) Cell and Module Performance Laboratory and provides access to PV performance measurements and best practices to U.S. universities, national laboratories, and the DOE Solar Energy Technologies Office. Through its primary reference cell calibrations, this laboratory maintains the PV peak watt rating for the United States. This work assures that U.S. consumers, installers, and PV project developers have confidence in the power ratings of the PV modules they purchase, enabling a more robust U.S. PV industry. This project also provides a world record of PV performance measurements, which is essential for tracking the progress of PV research and development.

Project Name: PV Performance Modeling
Lab: Sandia National Laboratories            
Location: Albuquerque, NM      
Principal Investigator: Marios Theristis
Project Summary: This project supports a variety of improvements to photovoltaic (PV) performance models, creation of an energy rating approach and datasets for the United States, development of a model validation framework, and support for the open-source modeling package, pvlib python. The objective of this project is to increase the value of PV performance models by improving their functionality, demonstrating and quantifying their validity, and offering a wide range of stakeholder engagement opportunities.

Project Name: PV Proving Grounds
Lab: Sandia National Laboratories
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Principal Investigator: Bruce King
Project Summary: This project conducts field research to better understand how photovoltaic (PV) systems function under real-world environmental operating conditions. Core field laboratories are located at the Photovoltaic Systems Research Laboratory at Sandia and the Outdoor Test Facility. The PV Proving Grounds leverages independently managed remote sites in Nevada, Florida, and Michigan to enable research in a variety of extreme climate zones within the United States. Collaborative field research in partnership with U.S. industry aims to validate new technologies and accelerate product development. The project carries out independent assessments of emerging PV technologies, including novel PV modules, monitoring systems, and balance of systems components. The performance data from this project is made available to the PV industry. The project also supports the leadership in the International Energy Agency Photovoltaic Power Systems Program Task 13 working group.

Project Name: PV Sustainability: IEA PVPS Task 12 Management and Stakeholder Engagement 
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Garvin Heath
Project Summary: This project supports the IEA PVPS Task 12, an international strategic group on photovoltaic (PV) sustainability involving 30 experts from 13 countries, emphasizing environmental and social factors. The mission of Task 12 is to provide essential information to stakeholders, enhancing consumer and policy-maker confidence in PV systems, and thereby accelerating the shift toward sustainable energy. The focus has expanded over the years to include circular economy and life cycle assessment.

Project Name: R&D to Ensure a Scientific Basis for Qualification Tests and Standards
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Ingrid Repins, Steve Johnston
Project Summary: This project performs research and development that leads to science-based tests and standards that can better ensure photovoltaic (PV) system reliability and quality. The team will design and perform accelerated stress tests on PV products and then correlate the results with successes and failures of PV products in the field. Topics of focus include new module types, glass cracking, ultraviolet (UV) exposure, and non-module system degradation, such as inverters, connectors, and racking. The team will add a stress chamber that can fit modern large-format modules, and simultaneously apply multiple stresses, including full-spectrum UV containing light. The new tests will help PV system owners better predict long-term safety and energy generation of different products while lowering the cost of PV electricity by extending the lifetime of PV modules.

Project Name: Silicon Photovoltaics
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Paul Stradins
Project Summary: This project aims to advance silicon photovoltaics (PV) though innovation in advanced device contact design and processing, and to support the U.S. PV industry both technically and with equitable workforce development. The project focuses on developing three new types of industrially relevant “engineered pinhole” passivated contacts that will enable a reliable advanced TOPCon solar cell based on patterned, passivated contacts for one-sun and tandem applications. The team will also develop silver-free, screen-printable copper metallization for these cells to enable cost savings and noble metal sustainability for terawatt-level PV production.

Project Name: Solar Radiation Research Lab
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Manajit Sengupta
Project Summary: The Solar Radiation Research Laboratory (SRRL) is a world-leading solar calibration and measurement facility and maintains the World Radiation Reference, which is essential for traceable and accurate measurements of solar radiation at all solar generation facilities. The Baseline Measurement System at SRRL provides a high-quality record of solar irradiance and surface meteorological conditions. SRRL capabilities are used to develop improved methods for the calibration of solar radiometers as well as new standards, models, and advanced instrumentation and methods for operating solar measurement stations. The SRRL datasets are also critical for validation of new models and datasets such as the National Solar Radiation Database. Research and development of solar radiation measurement systems and resource modeling techniques are essential for advancing the scientific basis for producing reliable resource data.

Project Name: Community-Centered Solar Development (CCSD) 2.0 
Lab: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Location: Berkeley, CA
Principal Investigator: Ben Hoen
Project Summary: This project is developing a first-of-its-kind, project-level dataset of large-scale solar land use permitting processes and conducting analyses to better understand drivers of prolonged permitting timelines. The project team is also addressing critical data gaps to better understand the economic benefits of large-scale solar on factors such as land ownership, farmer revenues, and neighboring property values. Finally, the team will convene researchers, industry representatives, and other stakeholders to exchange ideas, disseminate research findings, and promote the development of innovative solutions to large-scale solar siting and permitting challenges.

Project Name: Data-Driven Methods to Re-open PV-Saturated Feeders for New Interconnections
Lab: Sandia National Laboratories
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Principal Investigator: Matthew Reno
Project Summary: This project uses machine learning methods to evaluate the hosting capacity of distribution feeders and identify those that can support more distributed solar than is currently allowed by utilities using conservative estimations. Leveraging data from grid-sensing devices, the project team will analyze the underlying causes of closures to PV-saturated feeders and develop a data-driven process that will enable the feeders to be re-opened for additional PV interconnections. The methods developed in this project will be integrated into the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s existing open-source software analytics platform, the Open Modeling Framework.

Project Name: Distributed Solar and Storage Permitting Inspection & Interconnection Data and Analysis
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Jesse Cruce and Emily Dalecki 
Project Summary: This project collects permitting, inspection, and interconnection timeline data for residential rooftop (less than 50 kilowatts), commercial rooftop, and industrial solar PV. The project team will update the online SolarTRACE data repository and enhance its data visualization tool. The project will also provide the data needed to analyze the permitting, inspection, and interconnection timelines, as well as the effectiveness of federal, state, local, and utility programs.

Project Name: Removing Informational and Market Barriers to Solar Hybrid Deployment
Lab: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Location: Berkeley, CA
Principal Investigator: Jo Seel
Project Summary: Solar-plus-storage hybrid projects offer substantial value over standalone solar, but limited data on how hybrids are operated can lead to conservative assumptions about their capabilities. This project collects operational data on large-scale hybrid plants and conducts analyses on how operational and market structures impact the value of hybrid plants and how hybrid operations impact the electric grid (costs, reliability, etc.). Beyond providing analyses and datasets to stakeholders, the project will develop best practices for data reporting and reduce barriers to technical modeling by releasing a public hybrid dispatch modeling tool. 

Project Name: Solar Siting and Land Use for Electricity Planning
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Wesley Cole  
Project Summary: This project provides critical data, analysis, and tools to help stakeholders evaluate the cost, value, and associated trade-offs of large-scale solar deployment. The project will continue to generate and improve solar supply curves that are used in modeling and tools for long-term planning of the electricity system (e.g., ReEDs and SLOPE). The project also trains a large language model to catalogue local zoning ordinances that govern large-scale solar development. Using the data and modeling capabilities enabled by the updated supply curves and zoning ordinances catalog, the team will generate tools and resources that can help stakeholders better understand trends in land use for large-scale solar deployment.

Project Name: Stakeholder Perspectives on Barriers to Widespread Solar Deployment
Lab: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Location: Berkeley, CA
Principal Investigator: Joseph Rand 
Project Summary: This project conducts stakeholder surveys to provide insights into the barriers and potential drivers of widespread PV deployment within different solar market segments (large-scale, residential, and commercial). Surveys will investigate specific topics such as barriers to interconnection; residential and commercial adoption within low- and moderate-income communities; and the social dynamics of planning, siting, and permitting large-scale solar. The project will inform DOE and other stakeholders on potential solutions to support solar deployment.

Project Name: Transportation Right-of-Way Solar: Analyzing and Enabling Large-Scale Solar Roadway Siting
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Joe Simon
Project Summary: This project conducts a national analysis of the technical potential, barriers, and opportunities for deploying large-scale solar in rights-of-way (ROWs) managed by state Departments of Transportation. Lab researchers are working to produce criterion for ROW solar suitability, a national assessment of solar technical potential along interstate and state highway ROWs, a toolkit for state DOTs, and broad stakeholder engagement. The project will result in useful and actionable resources for state DOTs interested in utilizing their ROWs for solar energy.

Core Capability Projects

Project Name: Analysis of Solar Energy Markets
Lab: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Location: Berkeley, CA
Principal Investigator: Ryan Wiser
Project Summary: This project collects, synthesizes, and publishes datasets on solar technology, cost, value, performance, and demographics for both distributed and utility-scale solar. The team analyzes the data in the annual Tracking the Sun, Utility-Scale Solar, Solar-Adopter Demographics, and the U.S. Photovoltaics Database reports. Lab researchers also conduct in-depth analyses of solar technology costs and markets, solar access and adoption, and solar valuation in electricity markets and provide institutional support to ensure external stakeholders benefit from the work.

Project Name: InSPIRE 4.0
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Jordan Macknick
Project Summary: Co-locating solar projects with agricultural land uses such as grazing, crop production, and ecologically beneficial vegetation—a practice known as agrivoltaics—can potentially provide benefits to farmers, rural communities, and the solar industry. Prior InSPIRE projects demonstrated the feasibility of these novel configurations and designs at multiple test sites around the country. InSPIRE 4.0 builds on this work through 1) technical assistance for solar developers, farmers, and researchers; 2) foundational agrivoltaic data collection; 3) agrivoltaic field research studying crop production, photovoltaic performance, and ecosystem benefits; and 4) a social impact assessment framework to enhance host community participatory planning processes.

Project Name: Open Energy Data Initiative
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Jon Weers
Project Summary: This project supports and improves the Open Energy Data Initiative (OEDI), a repository of high-value energy research datasets aggregated from DOE programs, offices, and national laboratories. Through OEDI, DOE-funded energy data is made publicly available and useable via major cloud platforms. The large data repository facilitates scientific analysis of large datasets, models, and algorithms.

Project Name: PVWatts
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Janine Keith
Project Summary: This project supports PVWatts, a popular web application for estimating the energy production of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems. Designed to be simple and understandable for non-experts, PVWatts received more than 17.5 million hits per month in 2022. The project team conducts maintenance and upgrades to the PVWatts algorithm, application program interface, and webpage to maintain the application’s functionality and relevance. The team will also explore the viability of adding battery storage to the application.

Project Name: PV System Cost Benchmark
Lab:  National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory
Location:  Golden, CO; Albuquerque, NM; Berkley, CA
Principal Investigator:  David Feldman, Jennifer Braid, Peng Peng
Project Summary:  This project helps the Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) and the broader solar community meet national goals for the deployment of low-cost solar power by performing data collection and analysis to benchmark the cost structure of photovoltaic (PV) solar power systems installed in the United States as a function of system size, manufacturing scale, labor rates, and overhead. The data will be used to populate SETO’s PV System Cost Model (PVSCM), which enables competing technology pathways to be compared and prioritized for both long-term R&D funding and near-term policy recommendations. SETO is funding three national laboratories to independently collect and submit data for PVSCM. Differences between the values reported will provide a better estimate of uncertainty in each cost component than relying on a sole source.

Project Name: Solar Soft Costs Analytical Support
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory       
Location: Golden, CO    
Principal Investigator: Robert Margolis
Project Summary: This project provides data and analysis of the non-hardware (soft) costs of solar energy, such as those related to siting, permitting, and interconnection. Laboratory researchers draw on multiple internal and external data sources to develop timely information and analysis that support SETO’s soft cost program. Work under this project includes the development of graphs, presentations, memorandums, and reports.

Project Name: A Modular Multi-Application Multi-Resolution Sensor Fusion Optimization Architecture for Transmission System Operation 
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Jin Tan
Project Summary: This project aims to develop a modularized, multi-application, multi-resolution, and resilient sensor and communication placement/upgrade optimization architecture. This modular architecture will be comprised of five submodules: an application layer for customizable application selection; a visibility layer for fusing visibility criteria; an optimization layer for multi-objective optimization; a cost-benefit analysis module; and a testing and validation platform leveraging real-world testing environments. By bridging the gap between available sensor technologies and emerging grid applications, the project will assist transmission system operators and planners in effectively and economically achieving their situational awareness upgrade strategies.

Project Name: Sensor Placement, Monitoring, and Data Analytics Platform (Sensor-MAP)
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Harsha Padullaparti 
Project Summary: The project aims to develop and demonstrate an open-source software suite—Sensor Placement, Monitoring, and Data Analytics Platform (Sensor-MAP)—that performs multistage, probabilistic, optimal sensor selection and placement while considering multiple low- and high-resolution sensor types. It also includes modules that perform observability quantification at both the system and individual state levels: distribution steady-state (D-SSSE) and dynamic state estimation applications (D-DSSE). The project will also assess the interdependencies between physics-based grid models and the corresponding communication networks to identify potential network upgrades. The enhanced state estimation accuracy achieved with higher visibility of the distribution grid will lead to more optimized performance of grid control applications.

Core Capability Projects

Project Name: Essential Operations for Solar (EOS)
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 
Location: Golden, CO; Albuquerque, NM; Richland, WA 
Principal Investigator: Andy Hoke; Michael Ropp; Jing Xie 
Project Summary: This program supports reliability standards development, revision, and implementation for grid operations and planning with high solar deployment, addressing interconnection challenges and performance requirements for inverter-based technologies on the bulk power system and distribution systems. It also supports the development of guidelines and best practices for control automation in distributed energy resources management systems and microgrid applications, and provides rapid reaction to current events and anticipation of future needs. The program focuses on providing leadership and subject-matter experts for standards committees and working groups for development of new standards and revision of existing standards; supporting the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and other agencies with analysis of certain events and implications for standards development or revision; promoting rapid adoption of relevant standards by industry and regulatory bodies; and agile response to future standards needs through new tasks.

Project Name: National Solar Resource Database (NSRDB)
Lab: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Location: Golden, CO
Principal Investigator: Manajit Sengupta
Project Summary: NSRDB is an indispensable public resource for a historical record of solar irradiance in the United States, used by industry, academia, and national lab researchers for a variety of goals, from solar project feasibility to grid planning studies. this project focuses on the database’s maintenance and update, including the improvement of trade-offs between cost, accessibility, and accuracy for best data delivery, and will also extend the NSRDB coverage over the Alaska region (high latitude) in collaboration with the DOE Arctic Energy Office.

Project Name: Securing Solar for the Grid (S2G)
Lab:  National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory; Sandia National Laboratory; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 
Location:  Golden, CO; Idaho Falls, ID; Albuquerque, NM; Richland, WA 
Principal Investigator: Danish Saleem; Megan Culler; Birk Jones; Artis Riepnieks 
Project Summary: This project is focused on achieving the highest level of cybersecurity maturity of solar technologies, including equipment, digital supply chains, and bulk and distribution electric power grid facilities. S2G is a collaborative effort to address gaps in cybersecurity standards, best practices, tools, training, testing, and analysis for solar photovoltaics (PV) and solar plus other distributed energy resources (DERs). The program focuses on  demonstrating and deploying cyber-physical monitoring tools to increase solar DER network visibility, detect threats, and provide remediation strategies; establishing solar inverter-based resource cybersecurity testing that considers supply chain and information sharing through stakeholder engagement activities; refining existing training modules and extending to solar hybrid systems based on vulnerability assessments; developing new frameworks and best-practices guides to increase DER aggregator maturity levels; developing and adopting risk-assessment tools to inform investments; informing standards development and best practices; and enhancing stakeholder engagement and collaboration.

Project Name: Solar Grid Integration Data Library and Model Validation Platform (OEDI SI)
Lab:  National Renewable Energy Laboratory; Argonne National Laboratory; Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 
Location: Golden, CO; Lemont, IL; Oak Ridge, TN; Richland, WA
Principal Investigator:  Rui Yang; Karthikeyan Balasubramaniam; Jin Dong; Andy Reiman 
Project Summary: This program, as part of Open Energy Data Initiative (OEDI), aims to provide integrated, uniform datasets from multiple power systems operation technologies. This includes phasor measurement units; smart meters (advanced metering infrastructure); smart inverters, including distributed energy resources management systems; grid equipment, including protection relays; and new sensor technologies. These datasets will be used for grid modeling and analysis that is robust, replicable, and generalizable. The program will focus on extending the platform’s capabilities to support advanced use-cases, new data types and sources, and new modeling and analysis approaches.