Solar Research News
Explore our archive of solar news stories.
Oct. 22, 2024
During the July 2024 Lake Fire in Santa Barbara County, California, NREL and the U.S. Forest Service successfully piloted several renewable energy solutions that put their sustainable firefighting operations ideas into practice.
Oct. 17, 2024
From Sept. 21 to 27, groups of scientists and engineers from around the globe gathered at NREL's Solar Radiation Research Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, for the 24th NREL Pyrheliometer Comparisons.
Oct. 1, 2024
Students from 38 schools are entering an ever-widening community of competitors and alumni involved in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar District Cup Collegiate Design Competition.
Sept. 18, 2024
The Materials Science senior scientist was named one of NREL's 2024 Distinguished Members of Research Staff.
Sept. 5, 2024
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science Basic Energy Sciences program recently selected NREL to lead A Center for Power Electronics Materials and Manufacturing Exploration (APEX), a new Energy Frontier Research Center.
Aug. 28, 2024
Recognizing the crucial role heliostats play at large-scale concentrating solar power facilities, the U.S. Department of Energy's Heliostat Consortium awarded a combined $3 million across six projects to innovate heliostat controls, deployment, and workforce training.
Aug. 22, 2024
No molecule stands alone—they need others, at least when it comes to being able to display useful photophysical, electronic, and chemical properties.
Aug. 6, 2024
In solar cells and light-emitting diodes, maintaining the excited state kinetics of molecules against annihilation is a race against time.
July 23, 2024
Researchers working at the forefront of an emerging photovoltaic technology are thinking ahead about how to scale, deploy, and design future solar panels to be easily recyclable.
July 17, 2024
Deriving inspiration from the natural process of photosynthesis, NREL researchers developed a mixed-dimensionality (2D/1D/2D) trilayer of semiconductors to enable exciton dissociation.
July 15, 2024
The year 2023, according to NREL analyst David Feldman, was a year of historic proportions in the solar power industry.
July 1, 2024
New research funded by the U.S. Department of Energy examines degradation mechanisms of PSCs under the unfiltered sunlight of the outdoors in comparison with widely used light-emitting diodes.
June 26, 2024
The number of residential solar photovoltaics installations continues to increase across the United States. But that increase is slower for low-income households, who made up 23% of solar adopters as of 2022.
June 26, 2024
Approximately 70 researchers from 14 countries gathered in California earlier this month to discuss the progress toward deploying multiple terawatts of solar power around the globe to transition to a sustainable energy system.
June 20, 2024
From research to life in the Antarctica research stations, diesel fuel provides almost all of the necessary power. The fuel is shipped to Antarctica and either flown or trucked to the South Pole, an expensive proposition that could be greatly reduced using wind and solar.
June 12, 2024
Shifting our perception of extreme weather could support planning a reliable future grid.
June 12, 2024
The SolarAPP+ automated online permitting platform instantly issues a permit for residential solar PV or PV-plus-storage systems if they pass an automated code compliance check, saving valuable time for local governments and solar contractors. In 2023, the platform continued to grow nationwide.
June 10, 2024
Realizing the need and opportunity to probe deeper into the mysteries of the chemical reactions that sustain photosynthesis and enable light-driven ammonia production and hydrogen catalysis, NREL formed the Advanced Spin Resonance Facility.
May 30, 2024
NREL Senior Research Fellow Emeritus Arthur Nozik investigates methods to turn photons from our solar system's star into fuels, chemicals, and electricity.
May 20, 2024
For the solar photovoltaics (PV) industry, rapid growth can produce rapid—and sometimes unpredictable—changes.
May 2, 2024
NREL photovoltaics researchers created a new version of the iconic chart that tracks world-record photovoltaic cells across many technologies and time.
May 1, 2024
On May 1, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the 10 Solar Prize Round 7 finalist teams who were each awarded $100,000 in cash and $75,000 in technical support vouchers for their innovative ideas for advancing solar deployment.
April 25, 2024
The use of femtosecond lasers to form glass-to-glass welds for solar modules would make the panels easier to recycle, according to a proof-of-concept study conducted by researchers at NREL.
April 25, 2024
Researchers at NREL have prepared a roadmap on how to move tandem solar cells—particularly those that mesh different photovoltaic technologies—closer to commercialization.
April 8, 2024
On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will traverse North America bringing a period of midday complete darkness to 12 U.S. states and affecting solar power plants across all 50 U.S. states.
March 7, 2024
Historically, photovoltaic (PV) modules have demonstrated high reliability, making them a dependable and growing part of global decarbonization efforts.
March 4, 2024
Over the past year, NREL and industry partner Nextracker teamed up to advance the reliability of photovoltaic (PV) tracker technologies during severe weather events.
Feb. 29, 2024
The U.S. energy transition is gaining speed, accelerated by government renewable energy goals and billions of dollars through the Inflation Reduction Act. As we race toward a greener future, understanding the potential adverse effects of renewable energy technologies before they are deployed has never been more critical.
Feb. 21, 2024
Participants in a workshop organized by NREL agree on the importance of mitigating degradation rates for the continuing rollout of clean technologies.
Jan. 24, 2024
A massive data set of photovoltaic system performance quantifies the small but significant impacts of extreme weather and long-term degradation, with important lessons for the PV industry.
Jan. 12, 2024
The United States is poised for a clean energy boom, with the new investments flowing from 2021's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act expected to unlock around $3 trillion in clean energy and energy efficiency investments.
Jan. 11, 2024
NREL has awarded $1.8 million to fund seven projects to support the Cadmium Telluride Accelerator Consortium.
Jan. 11, 2024
A new crop of semifinalists has been selected to move on to the Set! Contest in the American-Made Solar Prize Round 7.
Jan. 10, 2024
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office announced 25 Phase 1 winning teams, each receiving a $50,000 cash prize and advancing to Phase 2 of the competition.
Jan. 9, 2024
People who own electric vehicles are more likely to go a step further and add solar panels to their home, according to an analysis of a behavioral study by researchers at NREL.
Jan. 2, 2024
The HelioCon Annual Report: 2023 provides detailed information on progress the Heliostat Consortium team has made since its founding.
