Jul 31 2010
Sandia National Laboratories along with SunPower Corporation have entered into an agreement for conducting research towards integrating large-sized PV systems into the power grid. By inking a CRADA (Cooperative Research and Development Agreement), both the organizations will be able to get the benefit of a combined funding from SunPower and the U.S. DOE (Department of Energy) to the extent of around $1 million.
Furthermore, a SunPower led consortium, with Sandia as one of the partners, has been recently awarded a grant of $1 million from the CSI (California Solar Initiative) for improving the modeling of PV systems with high penetration.
This partnership is bound to bring together analysis and PV modeling expertise along with in-depth system information for answering urgent alternative energy questions that are faced by utility companies with customers who are increasingly turning towards cleaner, solar energy resources. Decreasing costs, state incentives, federal incentives along with an increased interest towards clean energy sources have facilitated the acceleration of solar power usage.
A recent Solar Electric Industries Association report indicated that the solar sector, despite economic slowdown, grew in 2009. The overall U.S. solar energy capacity from concentrated solar power (CSP) and PV technologies stood at more than 2,000 MW, sufficient to serve over 350,000 homes.