{"id":175400,"date":"2023-05-11T14:24:17","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T21:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inbusinessphx.com\/?p=175400"},"modified":"2023-05-11T14:24:17","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T21:24:17","slug":"asu-researchers-teamup-to-advance-solar-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.inbusinessphx.com\/?p=175400","title":{"rendered":"ASU Researchers TEAMUP to Advance Solar Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As climate change becomes a more pressing problem worldwide, the race to develop sustainable power-generation technology is increasingly crucial. A new consortium of academic and industry partners,\u00a0Tandems for Efficient and Advanced Modules using Ultrastable Perovskites<\/a>, or TEAMUP, seeks to help mitigate climate change by making a new generation of solar technology commercially viable.<\/p>\n

The three-year TEAMUP collaboration, which is planned to start in the fall of 2023, is supported by $9 million in funding from the\u00a0U.S. Department of Energy<\/a>. TEAMUP intends to maximize the performance and reliability of tandem solar panels for consumer use.<\/p>\n

Tandem refers to solar panels that are made from a combination of two or more cell materials optimized to absorb different sections of the electromagnetic spectrum, or simply put, colors of light.<\/p>\n

Halide perovskites are a family of materials that have shown tremendous potential for high performance and low production costs in solar cells. The name \u201cperovskite\u201d comes from the nickname for the materials\u2019 crystal structure. Perovskites and silicon absorb different colors of sunlight, resulting in a greater combined efficiency than for panels made from either material alone.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the consortium hopes to use this emerging technology to put the U.S. at the forefront of solar technology manufacturing. The effort aligns with Arizona\u2019s\u00a0New Economy Initiative<\/a>, which seeks to position the state as a hub for jobs in engineering, technology and advanced manufacturing.<\/p>\n

The consortium\u2019s work also aligns with the goals of ASU\u2019s\u00a0Advanced Materials, Processes, and Energy Devices<\/a>, or AMPED, Science and Technology Center, which has photovoltaic, or solar, technology as one of its primary research thrusts.<\/p>\n

An Academic Collaboration for Solar Innovation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Academic and government partners in the consortium include the\u00a0Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering<\/a>\u00a0at Arizona State University; the University of Colorado Boulder; the University of California, Merced; Northwestern University and the\u00a0National Renewable Energy Laboratory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ASU\u2019s involvement includes research groups run by Assistant Professor\u00a0Nick Rolston\u00a0and Associate Professors\u00a0Mariana Bertoni\u00a0and\u00a0Zachary Holman, all electrical engineering faculty members in the\u00a0School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering<\/a>, part of the Fulton Schools.<\/p>\n

Efforts at the University of Colorado at Boulder, which leads the academic research efforts of the partnership, are run by Professor and James M & Catherine Patten Chair in Chemical Engineering\u00a0Michael McGehee. Perovskite materials for solar panels are McGehee\u2019s area of expertise.<\/p>\n

\u201cMike McGehee was almost like a co-advisor to me when I was doing my doctoral degree at Stanford,\u201d Rolston says. \u201cI worked with several of his students in his lab quite frequently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rolston estimates that although the University of Colorado leads the consortium\u2019s academic investigations, ASU will play just as large a part in the research. Each ASU research group will play a different and complementary role:\u00a0Rolston\u2019s group<\/a>\u00a0will examine mechanical macro-level damage limits of the tandem silicon and perovskite panels, Bertoni\u2019s group will focus on conducting X-ray characterization of micro-level structural strains during aging and Holman\u2019s group will examine how to use the panels\u2019 optoelectronic properties to generate as much electricity as possible.<\/p>\n

Delivering Entrepreneurial Impact<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beyond Silicon<\/a>, which specializes in tandem solar panel technology and was founded by Holman and ASU electrical engineering Assistant Research Professor\u00a0Zhengshan Yu, is involved with the industry efforts to make the technology viable for commercial and consumer use.\u00a0Swift Solar<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Tandem PV<\/a>, both tandem solar technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area and started by McGehee\u2019s former students, round out the industry consortium members.<\/p>\n

Under Holman\u2019s guidance while a graduate student at ASU, Yu worked with McGehee to develop a tandem solar panel that\u00a0set a power generation efficiency record<\/a>. Now as CEO of Beyond Silicon, Yu and the other industry collaborators will focus on making tandem solar technology commercially viable by scaling it up from the small and commercially unviable sizes used in labs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. has lost its photovoltaic manufacturing prominence to countries in Asia,\u201d Yu says. \u201cPerovskite and silicon tandem technology is the next opportunity to return the U.S. to a leading position in photovoltaic manufacturing. This technology will make solar technology more affordable to decarbonize the grid and be a key energy generation technology for a sustainable future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AMPED STC aids Yu through the\u00a0Science and Technology Center Entrepreneurial Fellowship Program<\/a>, which supports private sector entrepreneurship. AMPED provides funding to private sector projects that stimulate research and development in Arizona.<\/p>\n

Yu believes that the TEAMUP public-private partnership is a great boost to help industry commercialize tandem solar technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs scientific challenges still remain to make tandem panels commercially viable, a consortium of industry partners plus academic institutions is the best way to achieve that goal,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Developing Solar Solutions\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ASU research groups will also provide opportunities to students from undergraduate to doctoral levels to conduct hands-on research. Rolston says that students in his group will take part in everything from producing panels to conducting durability testing and analysis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe techniques that my research group use basically involve breaking things apart,\u201d Rolston says. \u201cWe use tensile testers that can rip apart the materials to understand how much energy that takes and what the weak point is.\u201d<\/p>\n

His group is looking to add more students to aid in the work, especially those in undergraduate and master\u2019s degree programs. Involvement can fulfill project requirements for the\u00a0Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Master\u2019s Opportunity for Research in\u00a0Engineering<\/a>\u00a0programs, theses for ASU\u2019s\u00a0Barrett, The Honors College<\/a>\u00a0and master\u2019s degree programs and more.<\/p>\n

Bertoni hopes that the project\u2019s findings help to de-risk this new technology, attracting businesses to invest in Arizona.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that if we solve some of the reliability issues and show a path to manufacturability and long-term performance, these perovskite technologies will seed a lot of new ideas and businesses,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Rolston hopes those new businesses could find a home in Arizona, explaining that microelectronics manufacturing infrastructure is similar to that used for solar technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cArizona has such strengths in semiconductors from companies like\u00a0TSMC<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Intel<\/a>, along with expertise from the workforce,\u201d he says. \u201cI think Arizona would be the perfect place to produce solar panels, which would bring a lot of jobs to the state.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As climate change becomes a more pressing problem worldwide, the race to develop sustainable power-generation technology is increasingly crucial. A new consortium of academic and industry partners,\u00a0Tandems for Efficient and Advanced Modules using Ultrastable Perovskites, or TEAMUP, seeks to help mitigate climate change by making a new generation of solar technology commercially viable. The three-year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-175400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology-innovation","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.inbusinessphx.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.inbusinessphx.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.inbusinessphx.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.inbusinessphx.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.inbusinessphx.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=175400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.inbusinessphx.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.inbusinessphx.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.inbusinessphx.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=175400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.inbusinessphx.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=175400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.inbusinessphx.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=175400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}