Amendment II - The purpose of this amendment is to add Section II.H. Payment, to clarify the intended method of reimbursement for awards made under this Funding Opportunity Announcement. Please see Section II.H on page 19.
Amendment I - The purpose of this amendment is to modify the submission deadline for full applications and the deadline for questions regarding this FOA.
SolarMat intends to fund the development and demonstration of innovative, but commercially and technically viable, manufacturing technology that can achieve a significant market or manufacturing impact in 1 to 4 years. The FOA is motivated by the need for manufacturing advances in both Photovoltaic (PV) and Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technologies to significantly reduce costs of solar-generated electricity in the U.S. Consequently, this FOA has two topics areas: PV and CSP. Both topics focus on manufacturing technology and have the same overarching goal of driving down the cost of manufacturing and/or implementing efficiency-increasing technology in manufacturing. Ideally, this opportunity will create the next generation of solar industry-standard manufacturing technology.
Proposed technologies to the PV Topic Area must address 3 key areas. First, how the technology is substantially differentiated compared to what is currently used or being developed in the industry. Second, how the technology affects key manufacturing metrics: throughput, yield, capital expenses, labor, and conversion efficiency at the module level. Third, how the changes to the metrics translate to reductions in $/Wp of PV modules.
Proposed technologies to the CSP Topic Area must be for a hardware demonstration of manufacturing technologies and methodologies that can assemble a collector with attributes such as eliminating the need for a one-time use fabrication facility to be constructed, a pre-assembled (i.e. before either piece is placed in the solar field) reflective surface and collector foundation, utilization of wireless controls and power sources, and use of closed-loop software controls for collector pointing calibration. Proposals must demonstrate collector field costs of less than $75/m2.