Supporting the Obama Administration’s effort to make solar energy more affordable and accessible for all Americans, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced more than $9 million in funding for breakthrough research and development projects that will advance the reliability and durability of solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies. This funding opportunity will reportedly support projects aimed at improving product testing and increasing module quality and performance by providing the solar energy community and investors with access to improved predictive models, relevant accelerated testing techniques, and more reliable photovoltaic modules that will ultimately increase PV system investments.

Eligible projects will examine the performance of PV modules and develop accelerated tests to better understand how solar modules change over time and achieve improved lifetime performance of the modules. Key focus areas will include using physics, chemistry and advanced data analysis to gain a better understanding of why solar modules fail, developing improved product tests and new rapid testing techniques or instruments that evaluate module reliability, and improving data models to predict performance over time.