10 Solar Funding Opportunities

Photo credit: Real Goods Solar

At the end of May, President Obama announced over $117 million in new solar funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. Their proposed end being to support “the widespread commercialization of clean solar technologies and to scale up U.S. Solar manufacturing and production.” The means will likely entail more public-private partnerships between government institutions, laboratories, and universities with private sector firms.

Complementary to the increase in funding are two specific funding opportunities. These will be the first two of the following 10 examples of solar funding opportunities, the vast majority of federal examples distributed via the Solar Energy Technologies Program (SETP).

1. Solar Market Transformation. This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is meant to “address market barriers” to the spread of solar technologies. It will focus on the Solar America Cities Projects and solar installer training. The funding is available to the current group of 25 Solar America Cities for projects that are new — no funds available for the renewal of previous government funded projects.
2. High Penetration Solar Deployment. This FOA deals specifically with solar photovoltaic (PV) projects, ranging from the development of “improved modeling tools” to modular power architecture, demonstration projects, and energy storage. The goal is to discover, develop, test, and employ PV models and projects that can better penetrate our national grid distribution system.
3. Minority University Research Associate (MURA) Program. MURA is meant to encourage minority students to pursue careers in science and technology, with up to $1.8 million available for solar energy research and development. Undergraduate and graduate students, plus their faculty advisors, are eligible for up to $300,000 for study topics including PV, concentrated solar power (CSP), solar manufacturing, testing, and studies of applications and markets.

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10 Solar Funding Opportunities

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