The Australian Solar Institute (ASI; Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia) on December 17th, 2009 announced that it will support a number of innovative solar research and development (R&D) projects to accelerate the development of solar energy and to reinforce Australia's solar research capabilities.

According to the press release, the projects include a 30 % more efficient lower cost photovoltaic (PV) cell, thermionic devices that could generate electricity direct from heat and nanotechnology to capture light. Research is reportedly also being done on organic photovoltaic (OPV) solar cells which can be incorporated into building materials, and solar thermal units to power steam turbines. ASI reports that approximately 11 million Australian dollars will be made available to help fund five R&D projects valued at around 31 million Australian dollars. These projects are under development at several universities around the country and at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

Additional funding announcements for solar research projects anticipated in 2010

"The ASI is delighted to provide funding support to these 5 excellent projects", said Jenny Goddard, Chair of the ASI. "They offer significant potential to reduce the cost of solar energy by accelerating the development of photovoltaic cells and concentrating solar thermal technologies." According to the press release, the ASI Board authorized further discussions in respect to several other promising projects arising from the first round of applications. Further announcements are anticipated for the first half of 2010, pending the outcome of commercial-in-confidence discussions with the relevant applicants and their collaborative partners. Mark Twidell, Executive Director of ASI, said: "The ASI was very impressed by the high standard of the 87 funding applications received by the October 2009 deadline. Our 3 foundation projects announced in January 2009 aimed to develop key infrastructure for research into solar concentrating and photovoltaic technologies. The projects announced today build on these technologies and also include research in the area of organic solar, where the potential to generate electricity from simple low cost chemical processes has long term potential." The ASI plans to work proactively with potential R&D project proponents to encourage excellence, collaboration and to maximize commercial investment and development.

Research projects to explore various different aspects to advance solar technologies

ASI reports that it will support the University of New South Wales'

research project for the development and commercialization of high efficiency silicon solar cell technology with 3.972 million Australian dollars. The University of Newcastle is to receive 515,000 Australian dollars for the fabrication of thermionic devices using directional solidification / sintering processes for high temperature concentrating solar thermal applications. CSIRO and the Australian National University are to be supported by ASI for the advancement of steam generating receivers for high concentration solar collectors with 4.084 million Australian dollars. The Australian National University is to receive 1.67 million Australian dollars in funding for its research into plasmonics for high efficiency photovoltaic solar cells, using nanotechnology to capture more light. Finally, the University of Queensland was granted 945,000 Australian dollars in funding for its efforts in researching new materials and architectures for OPV cells beyond the Shockley-Queisser efficiency limit.

2009-12-30 | Courtesy: www.australiansolarinstitute.com.au/news.htm | solarserver.com © Heindl Server GmbH