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Credit: DOE, GeoEVSE.

The DOE’s conference-call news conference today was FUBAR’d, apparently for technical reasons, so some of the facts that follow might not be totally right. Thus forewarned, I report that the agency announced that it will be providing $5 million to local governments to build out infrastructure it says is needed for electric vehicle growth, and also announced that its NREL will be working with Google to develop a data system and online network to monitor the nation’s EV charging stations.

The $5 million, from what I can tell, is for obvious things, such as the hardware for charging stations, plus less obvious needs such as background systems and software to handle everything from billing to enabling the option of recharging at off-peak hours. John Hickenlooper, governor of Colorado, said in the news conference that charging stations are costing $3,500—$5,000 each in his state.

A statement from the DOE says the agency hopes that, with the funding, “local governments and private companies will partner to apply for funding to help accelerate installation of electric vehicle charging stations and infrastructure. Communities will work to develop plans and strategies for EV deployment, update their EV permitting processes, develop incentive programs, or launch other local or regional initiatives that improve the experience of EV users and help bring these highly energy-efficient vehicles in the marketplace.”

The conduit for the funding will be the Clean Cities Coalition program, an existing federally initiated public-private partnership to promote fleet-level fuel efficiency. Specific funding application information can be found here.

News of the NREL-Google partnership actually came out in mid-March but was largely lost among all the news regarding the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, so today’s announcement is something of a public rechristening of the effort. The project is called the GeoEVSE Forum and, on the DOE’s side, will be operated out of the agency’s Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicle Data Center. The AFDC, a group within DOE that goes back to the early 1990s, is sponsored by Clean Cities and managed by NREL.

In fairness, it should be noted that GeoEVSE includes many other partners and companies involved with EV deployment including charging equipment manufacturers, auto makers ISPs and GIS-related business. But, it’s the Google name that brings a sense of quality to the effort and attaches a good sense of what consumers can expect in terms of quality and ubiquity.

Sample GeoEVSE data. Credit: AFSC, Google.

A new release from the NREL explains that the goal of GeoEVSE “is to establish a primary data source for GPS and mapping services tracking electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) locations - or charging stations. … The partnership will ensure consumers have access to charging station location data that’s inclusive of all equipment manufacturers and charging networks.”

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Typically, photovoltaic units composed of thin-film silicon materials do not involve amorphous or single-crystalline silicon, and making thin-films with poly-silicon is still a frontier field (see previous post). But researchers at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology may have developed the world’s first thin-film amorphous silicon photovoltaic cell made by using liquid silicon “inks.”

The group says its units have an energy conversion efficiency of 1.79 percent, according to Tatsuya Shimoda, professor at the JAIST School of Materials Science who is leading the team.

The energy conversion level is not a revelation, but the printing process may be a significant innovation.

(WARNING: Some of the details of what Shimoda’s group is doing are a little sketchy because the translations of their work from Japanese to English range from pretty bad to really, really bad. So, be forewarned that some of the following details may be faulty.)

The cells that are created by the group are pin-type (sometimes noted as p-i-n-type), where the p-, i- and n- layers are added to a glass substrate using an innovative “printing” technique.

It looks like the group uses a method that starts with cyclopentasilane. The CPS is polymerize to make polysilanes. The materials were developed a few years ago when the researchers were learning how to make the polysilane from the CPS (the polymer molecules are made by bonding SiH₂ like a chain). At that point, JAIST  researchers were able to form amorphous silicon-thin film transistors using a chemical vapor deposition procedure.

In time, the group was able to make pin-type cells, however the group found it difficult to create a uniform polysilane film with all layers being formed through the CVP method. Thus, they shifted their focus to a printing-based process.

The researchers say that by printing the layers, they are able to increase the conversion efficiency from the previous (all CVP) method of 0.51% to 1.79%. They feel confident they can improve conversion efficiency, but they have a long way to go before they catch up the leading thin-film silicon cells, such as United Solar’s 12% efficiency level recently confirmed by NREL.

Perhaps it will be more import that they have been able to come up with a process to mass produce amorphous silicon PV cells using roll-to-roll manufacturing.

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An all-glass optical lens may be the key component to achieving higher efficiency and higher energy production concentrating solar power systems.

Silicon Valley-based Solergy, who recently announced plans  to install a 100kW all-glass optical lens CSP system in Sicily, Italy, believes glass is the only way to guarantee the durability, reliability and performance of concentrating optics over time.

“One of our initial and fundamental design principles from day one was that if this technology is ever to work reliably, we must have optics in glass. Otherwise it will not be a viable solution over the long term,” Solergy’s CEO and co-founder Yoav Banin said in an interview with Optics.org.

Solar lenses currently used are predominantly acrylic and silicone-on-glass materials. These materials are often prone to hazing, yellowing and cracking.

Solergy also claims that glass lenses are no more expensive that its polymer counterparts. “We have achieved an all-glass, large dimension, highly precise lens, that is fabricated via a proprietary low cost process,” said the company.

The company also boasts 32.9 percent efficiency, and an independent efficiency survey conducted by the National Renewable Energy Lab ranked Solergy’s glass lens efficiency at 29 percent. The lens is designed to optimize optical efficiency and deliver uniform radiation distribution.

Solergy’s CSP system was on display at the EnerSolar exhibition in Milan, Italy earlier this month.

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Audio versions (MP3) of the three plenary speakers at last month’s MS&T’10 conference are now available. We’ve broken them up into the individual presentations by Terry Michalske, Robert T. McGrath and Diran Apelian, plus a separate audio of the Q&A session that followed. The trio are introduced by ACerS President Marina Pascucci.

Terry Michalske: “Energy, Climate and Global Security in the 21st Century”

Michalske is the director of Savannah River National Lab. Building on 50-plus years of technological achievement and a framework of vital core competencies, SRNL applies state-of-the-art science to provide practical, high-value, cost-effective solutions to complex technical problems. The laboratory earns its world-class reputation because of its talented people and their unwavering commitment to safety, security and quality. SRNL applies this commitment to solving the complex problems of the times, such as the detection of weapons of mass destruction, the cleanup of contaminated groundwater and soils, the development of hydrogen as an energy source, the need for a viable national defense, and the safe management of hazardous materials.

Robert T. McGrath: “Alternative Energy Sources for Reducing Dependence on Fossil Fuels”

McGrath has 27 years experience in government lab, industry and academic settings, including previously serving as Deputy Laboratory Director for all Science & Technology programs at the National Renewable Energy Lab, and managing Ohio State University’s $720 million annual research program. He has contributed to Brookings Institute Briefings on Energy Policy and serves as consultant on Energy, STEM Education and R&D for Battelle and other clients.

Diran Apelian: “Linking Transformational Materials and Processing for an Energy Efficient and Low Carbon Economy: Creating the Vision and Accelerating Realization”

Apelian is Howmet Professor of Engineering and Director of the Metal Processing Institute at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He joined WPI in 1990 as the institute’s provost. He is credited with pioneering work in various areas of solidification processing, including molten metal processing, aluminum foundry engineering, plasma deposition and spray casting/forming. Apelian is the recipient of many distinguished honors and awards; he has over 500 publications to his credit, and serves on several technical and corporate boards.

Question & Answer period

The panelist field questions from various members of the plenary audience.

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2009 University of Kentucky Solar Decathlon entry

The DOE just release the names of the 20 teams (some from multiple schools) who will be competing in next year’s Solar Decathlon that will take place in Washington, D.C., in the fall 2011. Every two year, selected teams get an opportunity display some remarkable approaches to energy-efficient construction, appliances and use of novel materials. Aerogel insulation, for example, was big in 2009.

The 20 were selected from a pool of U.S. and international applicants that were evaluated by a panel of engineers, scientists, and experts from DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Teams were required to meet specific criteria to demonstrate their viability, including their ability to design and build an innovative, entirely solar-powered house, to raise additional funds, to support the project through a well-integrated curriculum, and to assemble a team necessary to carry the project through to completion. A panel of professionals from American Institute of Architects, National Association of Home Builders, the U.S. Green Building Council, building industry media, and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers evaluated conceptual designs from prospective teams. The results of their evaluations, combined with scores based on the four criteria listed above, determined the 2011 Solar Decathlon teams.

The teams are

• Appalachian State University
• The Research Foundation of CUNY
• Florida State University, The University of Central Florida, The University of Florida, and The University of South Florida
• Stevens Institute of Technology and The New School
• Ghent University
• Tongji University
• Massachusetts College of Art and Design and University of Massachusetts at Lowell- Boston and Lowell, Massachusetts
• Rutgers the State University of New Jersey and New Jersey Institute of Technology
• Middlebury College
• Florida International University
• The Ohio State University
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Old Dominion University and Hampton University
• University of Maryland
• Purdue University
• University of Calgary
• The University of Tennessee
• University of Hawaii
• The Southern California Institute of Architecture and California Institute of Technology
• Victoria University of Wellington
  

The DOE has also launched a new Solar Decathlon blog and has a gallery of photos of the 2009 entries here that really do a good job showing the stylish efforts.

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