US Department of Energy awards funding to CNSE CIGS solar project

PLAINVIEW, USA: Last week, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced a $57 million award to The College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) at the State University of New York at Albany as part of its SunShot Advanced PV Manufacturing Partnerships Program.

Veeco Instruments Inc., a leading provider of equipment for the solar industry, announced today that it is a key partner for CNSE on this project as part of the US Photovoltaic Consortium

The DOE’s SunShot Initiative aims to reduce the total costs of photovoltaic solar energy systems by about 75 percent so that CIGS (Copper, Indium, Gallium, Selenide) solar is cost competitive with other forms of energy by the end of the decade. Achieving this goal – equivalent to approximately $1 per watt or roughly 6 cents per kilowatt-hour for utility systems – would allow solar energy systems to be broadly deployed across the country.

John Peeler, Veeco’s CEO commented: “We are excited to be a key partner for the CNSE project. Driven by the world-class innovation at CNSE, the PVMI CIGS consortium will provide a full-scale CIGS center enabling the whole PV supply chain to work together to deploy new technologies, and enable the transition to commercial production. Bringing together end-users, module manufacturers, suppliers, and technologists is the most efficient way to rapidly advance technology. This center has all the elements to speed the progress of CIGS commercialization."