National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Photovoltaic Research - PV Manufacturing R&D
Solicitations
 Cadmium indium diselenide (CIGS) is deposited on lightweight, flexible polyimide substrate in roll form at Global Solar Energy. Global Solar improved the speed and yield for manufacturing CIGS thin-film PV modules under a PV Manufacturing R&D subcontract. |
This solicitations page always contains information about the PV Manufacturing R&D Project's current solicitation and/or a summary of the most recent solicitation awarded. The Project focuses on advancing company-specific manufacturing processes through cooperative, cost-shared R&D projects with companies that are incorporated in the United States.
Please bookmark this page and be sure to visit often for the Project's latest solicitation information! To learn more about solicitations of past phases of the Project, please visit our Partnership database.
Current Solicitation
There are no active solicitations for Letters of Interest (LOIs).
Most Recent Solicitation
"Large-Scale Module and Component Yield, Durability, and Reliability"
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory issued a solicitation for LOIs in Spring 2003 for research and development efforts from members of the PV and related industries. The solicitation, entitled "PV Manufacturing R&D-Large-Scale Module and Component Yield, Durability, and Reliability", addresses a range of topics relating to the manufacture of PV modules, components, and systems.
The proposed work areas include, but are not limited to:
- Improvement of module-manufacturing processes to increase module reliability
- System and system-component packaging, system integration, manufacturing, and assembly
- Product manufacturing flexibility
- Balance-of-systems (BOS) development, including storage and quality control
The primary focus is the enhancement of module, system-component, and complete-system reliability.
As the market demand for PV modules and systems has grown, the U.S. Department of Energy, NREL, Sandia, and the PV industry have joined forces, through the PV Manufacturing R&D Project, to ensure that the growing markets can be served.
In addition to simply meeting demand, this partnership took a significant step in the Project's sixth solicitation (In-line Diagnostics and Intelligent Processing-2001) to address product yield and quality by supporting the introduction of intelligent process controls into manufacturing lines. This solicitation will take a second, more significant step to:
- Ensure that production volume increases are matched by increases in product quality and, therefore, field reliability
- Address reliability issues related to PV modules, module manufacturing, and BOS components individually
- Address design and reliability issues related to complete PV systems (residential to large-scale utility deployments)
- Address the markets resulting from the growing number of state-level renewable portfolio standards.
