OPPORTUNITY REPORT:

Small Innovative Projects in Solar (SIPS): Concentrating Solar Power & Photovoltaic

Thursday, May 4, 2023

Program Summary

Key information at a glance:

Opportunity Title: Small Innovative Projects in Solar: Concentrating Solar Power and Photovoltaic (SIPS: CSP & PV)
Opportunity Number: DE-FOA-0002888
Agency: Department of Energy, Solar Energy Technologies Office
Total Program Funding: $6,500,000
Award Ceiling: $250,000 - $400,000
Cost Match: 20%
Expected Number of Awards: 14-24
Deadline: June 01, 2023

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Program Overview

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) announced $6.5 million for the 2023 Small Innovative Projects in Solar (SIPS) opportunity. The program supports R&D projects that focus on innovative and novel ideas in concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) and photovoltaics (PV) technologies to advance and accelerate market adoption of solar technologies. Through this FOA, the department aims to investigate high-risk ideas that address a major technology barrier or a novel concept, and to attract new researchers into the applied solar R&D community. New principal investigators, especially early-career researchers who have never applied or been awarded SETO funding, are encouraged to apply.

Topic Areas

Topic Area 1: SIPS: Concentrating Solar Power (CSP)

Number of Awards: 7-12

Award Size: $400,000

Total Federal Funding: $4,000,000

Period of Performance: 18 months

The Concentrating Solar Power topic area will support small, focused projects investigating the applicability and robustness of novel ideas in CSP. Responsive concepts include all aspects of CSP plants with thermal energy storage, as well as solar-thermal industrial process heat (SIPH) innovations, and solar-thermal fuel systems.

Topic Area 2: SIPS: Photovoltaic (PV)

Number of Awards: 7-12

Award Size: $250,000

Total Federal Funding: $2,500,000

Period of Performance: 12 months

The Photovoltaic topic area supports new and emerging areas of PV research that can produce significant results within the first year of performance and lay the foundation for continued research. These projects should aim to significantly lower costs and focus on improving the power conversion efficiency, fielded energy output, reuse and recycling of system components, service lifetime, and manufacturability of PV technologies.

Strategic Goals

SETO aims to reach the following cost targets across all technology areas by 2030:

$0.05 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for residential PV
$0.04 per kWh for commercial PV
$0.02 per kWh hour for utility-scale PV
$0.05 per kWh for CSP baseload plants with a minimum of 12 hours of energy storage.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Requirements:

This FOA encourages the participation of underserved communities and underrepresented groups, requiring Applicants to describe how diversity, equity, and inclusion objectives will be incorporated. Applicants are encouraged to include individuals from historically underrepresented groups in STEM on their project teams.

Eligibility

Eligible domestic entities are as follows:

Institutions of higher education;
Large for-profit entities;
Non-profit entities;
State, local, and Tribal governmental entities
DOE/NNSA FFRDCs

Cost Sharing or Matching:

20% of the total allowable costs
Cost share waivers are available for institutions of higher education, minority serving institutions (MSIS), non-profit organizations (NPOS), and federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCS), and state, local, and tribal governments