DOE to fund research, development of solar-power storage technology

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said this week that it will fund six projects involving solar-power storage technology.

A total of $18 million has been granted to projects to develop technology that would allow homes to store solar energy for use at night or on cloudy days.

Institutions and businesses that are associated with these projects include the Hawaiian Electric Company, the Electric Power Research Institute, the Fraunhofer USA Center for Sustainable Energy Systems, Carnegie Mellon University, Austin Energy and Commonwealth Edison Company.

“Energy storage, solar (photovoltaic) and smart-grid technologies experienced incredible growth in 2015, and we expect they will play an increasingly important role in reaching the nation’s climate and clean-energy goals in the coming years,” DOE Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy David Danielson said. “The Energy Department is leading the way in the development and deployment of affordable, reliable grid-integration technologies, including energy storage, intelligent inverters, load management and innovative PV solutions, that can boost the resiliency of our nation’s electric grid while allowing us to deploy greater amounts of solar and other renewables.”