By 2015, solar energy will be fiscally attainable for the average American, members from the U.S. Department of Energy predicted.
A representative from the DOE and two UT professors spoke at a seminar on Thursday in the Nitschke Hall Auditorium about the future of research and funding for solar electricity in America.
"Our overall mission is to make sure we can have a widespread adoption of solar energy across the nation," said Dr. Marie Mapes, the photaic technology manager from the DOE's Solar Energy Technologies Program.
The SETP uses $170 million of the DOE's $24.7 billion annual budget to try to decrease the cost of solar electricity through organizing and coordinating applied research at the national level, Mapes said.
In 2006, the SETP saw a large increase in funding through a program known as the Solar America Initiative. The goal of SAI is to reduce the cost of solar electricity to the point where it is competitive with conventional sources of electricity, such as coal or nuclear power, said Al Compaan, distinguished physics professor at UT and one of the speakers at the seminar.
"In our program, we've been focusing primarily through the Solar America Initiative on driving down the cost of solar to the point where it's at grid parody, so at the price that you pay for electricity just from normal generation of electricity," Mapes said.
The SETP and the SAI has a projected goal that the solar industry will reach "cost parody with grid electricity by 2015," without financial incentives from the government, Mapes said.
"This is our projections of what [the solar industry is] going to able to do, and we put in funding dollars where we can, to be able to help accelerate that," Mapes said. "That's what our program is about."
If SAI's goal is met by the solar industry in 2015, then solar electricity will be cost effective for any American who pays an electricity bill, Mapes said.
As the technology manager in the SETP, Mapes coordinates photovoltaic research and development and manages university research of advanced photaic concepts. The SETP focuses on two ways of producing electrons from solar energy, known as photovoltaics and concentrating photovoltaics, Mapes said.
Photovoltaics can be broken down into two generations. The first generation uses thin "wafers" of crystalline silicon - the same material used to make computer chips, Compaan said. The second generation, or thin film photovoltaics, generates electricity through materials such as cadmium telluride, which is used to create a thin layer on a substrate such as glass or stainless steal.
"First generation works well, but it's more expensive and it's more difficult to get the cost down," Compaan said. "Thin film PV ... it's expected that this second generation technology will be the best at reducing the cost of solar electricity."
Concentrating photovoltaics focuses sunlight from a lens onto a liquid, which then produces heat or steam used to drive a machine, Mapes said.
The SETP also arranges partnerships between industries, universities and national labs to maximize the DOE research investments.
"The University of Toledo is kind of an up-and-coming area for photovoltaic research," Mapes said. "I think it's world-class. It's definitely one of the places that you think of when you think of photovoltaic research."
While UT focuses on research and development of photovoltaics, a local industry in Perrysburg, known as First Solar, is paving the way for solar electricity produced from thin film photovoltaics.
"First Solar produces the most megawatts of solar products in America right now," Mapes said. "If you don't know about this company, First Solar, then you should find out about it, because you should be really proud of it for being in your backyard."
Toledo and Detroit are currently leading the world in second generation photovoltaic technology, Compaan said. It is speculated that Toledo is leading the world in this technology because of its past manufacturing glories as the "Glass City."
"I guess Toledo has a lot of experience with manufacturing, particularly in glass, and that's been a critical component for photovoltaics," Mapes said. "It was kind of a natural marriage."
Of course, solar energy is not the only answer to the country's dependency on non-renewable fuel sources. Other forms of renewable energy can be found in wind energy, biomass and geothermal energy.
"I would prefer to not see it as a contest between them," Mapes said. "We have to use everything to be able to solve our energy problems, and solar is just a piece of the puzzle."
Some Americans, like Compaan, are hoping the new Obama administration and other factors will bring alternative energy into the future.
"There is going to be a very bright future for these kinds of renewable sources for electricity," he said. "We need all of these kinds of technologies to get off our dependence on fossil fuels."
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