While the vast majority ($10 million) of the funds are allocated under the Recovery Act, they are being officially channeled through the DOE’s Photovoltaic Incubator Program, which works to put prototype solar tech into demonstration or full-scale projects. Roughly $3 million will be awarded to each company as part of an 18-month subcontract with the DOE. The four award winners are:
- Alta Devices Inc. of Santa Clara, California. Alta will try to develop and commercialize a solar module with a conversion efficiency better than 20 percent. They plan for market entry in 2011.
- Solar Junction Corp., based in San Jose, Calif. will develop a manufacturing process for a high-efficiency multi-junction solar cell. They are intended for use in concentrating photovoltaics (CPV).
- Tetra Sun, another California company, will work on developing a back-surface passivation, which helps protect a semiconductor from contamination, for crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells. The result should be high-efficiency, low-cost c-Si solar cells, which are already the most efficient and durable solar cells on the market.
- Moving eastward, Semprius Inc., based in Durham, North Carolina, will develop a “massively parallel,” microcell-based CPV receiver. The company will combine manufacturing techniques unique to solar power with the inherent benefits of CPV.
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