The following press release from Nov. 19,
2012, is from the U.S.
Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative.
In support of the
Obama Administration's all-of-the-above energy strategy, the U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) today announced 10 small business-led projects to speed solar
energy innovation from the lab to the marketplace. Through the DOE's SunShot
Initiative, this $10 million investment will help significantly reduce the
total installed cost of solar energy systems and strengthen American leadership
in this growing global industry. According to a new report by The SolarFoundation, the U.S.
solar industry employs more than 119,000 people, representing a 13 percent
increase in these high-skilled American jobs over last year.
The SunShot
Initiative's Incubator program helps launch new start-ups and business units
within existing companies to accelerate innovative solar technology
development, ensuring that the United
States remains competitive globally. Since
2007, the Department has invested more than $92 million through the Incubator
program in promising technologies as they are brought from the lab to the
marketplace. These investments have attracted nearly $1.7 billion in follow-on
private investment, at a ratio of nearly $20 in subsequent private sector
support for every $1 of federal support.
The projects
selected will tackle a range of solutions, including advances in photovoltaics,
energy storage, balance of system hardware and power electronics as well as
streamlined interconnection. For example, New Jersey-based Qado Energy is
leading a project to commercialize a computing platform that reduces utility
interconnection expenses, decreases wait times for interconnection, and lowers
developer financing costs. Based in California,
QBotix is building an advanced robotic controller that can travel between solar
trackers and automatically adjust them to follow the sun.
Read the full list of award winners to learn more about the selected
projects.
The SunShot Initiative is a collaborative national
effort to make solar energy cost-competitive with other forms of energy by the
end of the decade. Inspired by President Kennedy's "Moon Shot"
program that put the first man on the moon, the SunShot Initiative has created
new momentum for the solar industry by highlighting the need for American
competitiveness in the clean energy race.
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