The Power Efficiency and Alternative Energy (EERE) Postdoctoral Research Awards usually are meant to be a method for significant energy-efficiency and alternative energy innovation. The EERE Postdoctoral Research Awards are made to engage early career postdoctoral recipients in research which will provide them possibilities to know the mission and research needs of EERE making advances in research topics worth focusing on to EERE Programs. Research Awards is going to be presented to exceptional applicants thinking about going after applied research to deal with topics listed through the EERE Programs sponsoring the study Awards.

Applicants may select as much as three research topics. Research proposal should be specific for that research topics therefore, another research proposal should be posted for every research subject selected. Proposals should be authorized by the research mentor indexed by the applying for every research subject.

S-501 Applying Behavior Insights to Solar Soft Cost Reduction

Possible Disciplines: Behavior Financial aspects, Applied Financial aspects, Information Technology, Social Science

In 2013, 64 cents of each and every dollar allocated to residential solar visited soft costs – the aggregated costs for installing panels, commissioning them, and connecting these to the grid. Soft cost reduction is exclusive from hardware innovation since it deals directly with individuals and procedures – like customer acquisition strategies, diffusion of guidelines to municipality officials, and relationships between decision makers at energy institutions for example solar installers and electric utilities. Soft cost progress advantages of applying is a result of social and behavior science to refine the methods that solar power systems are purchased, offered, designed, and monitored.

SunShot needs to aid postdoctoral researchers to use and advance cutting-edge social and behavior science they are driving toward the nation’s solar cost reduction goals.

Regions of interest include:

• Design, implementation, and look at randomized control trials together with institutions piloting new solar policies and programs (for example electric utilities and municipal governments)
• Using behavior financial aspects to know consumer preferences and the potency of messaging and framing associated with solar adoption strategies
• Analysis of one’s consumption patterns (using Eco-friendly Button data) and efficiency upgrade decisions pre and post solar adoption at residential- and commercial-scales and
• Human-interface the perception of solar monitoring devices.

S-502 Applying Data Science to Solar Cost Reduction

Possible Disciplines: Behavior Financial aspects, Applied Financial aspects, Information Technology, Social Science

The emergence of recent big data tools can transform how solar technology is researched, developed, shown, and deployed. From computational chemistry and inverse material design to adoption, reliability, and insolation forecasting, data scientists have possibilities to dramatically impact the way forward for solar power.

SunShot needs to aid postdoctoral researchers to use and advance cutting-edge data science they are driving toward the nation’s solar cost reduction goals.

Regions of interest include:

• Computational means of revealing insights about diffusion of solar technologies in the residential, commercial, and utility scales that consume large administrative, geospatial, economic, and financial datasets
• Novel analysis of Eco-friendly Button (smart meter) data
• Quantification of direct and exterior cost and advantages of distributed energy generation and storage
• Statistical conjecture means of electrical grid operations and planning for example solar insolation forecasting in addition to PV system performance
• Data tools for evolving photovoltaic and concentrating solar energy technologies.

S-503 Solar Systems Integration

Possible Disciplines: Power Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Information Technology

The Systems Integration (SI) program from the SunShot Initiative aims to allow extreme transmission of solar power to the electricity grid by addressing the connected technical and regulatory challenges. To be able to enable 100’s of GW of solar interconnected around the nation’s electricity grid, we seek postdoctoral studies that can help us address significant challenges within the following thrust areas:

Grid Performance and Reliability concentrates on achieving high transmission in the distribution level ( 69kV) as well as on the transmission grid inside a seamless, safe, reliable and price effective manner.

Topics of great interest include, but aren’t restricted to:

• Utility modeling, simulation, and analysis tools to deal with intricacies surrounding grid planning, operations, and reliability
• Developing advanced grid-friendly PV interconnection technologies
• Speeding up cost-effective deployment of PV generation around the distribution and transmission grid
• Developing validated inverter, solar system planning, operations and feeder models to boost PV integration analysis techniques
• Demonstrating the practicality of high-transmission PV scenarios under an array of system conditions through laboratory and field testing
• Evolving interconnection and gratifaction standards and codes to allow high amounts of PV integration for grid reliability.

Dispatchability aims to make sure that solar energy plants according to PV and concentrating solar energy (CSP) technologies at utility and distributed scales can handle being dispatched in a way that resembles or much better than conventional power plants.

Topics of great interest include, but aren’t restricted to:

• Extensive analyses to know the outcome of high transmission of solar energy plants around the bulk power system and distribution system operations
• Understanding and improving the dispatch capacity of PV solar energy plants, and investigating the need for different energy storage abilities for CSP plants
• Growth and development of standardized means of testing grid performance of PV solar energy plants, and exploring and demonstrating the need for energy storage.

Power Electronics seeks to build up intelligent devices with advanced functionalities that increase the output in the PV arrays around the one for reds and function the interfaces towards the electric grid (or finish use circuits) alternatively, while making certain overall system performance, safety, reliability, and controllability at least cost.

Topics of great interest include, but aren’t restricted to:

• Innovative circuit design that maximizes output in the PV arrays
• Growth and development of advanced components and optimal control
• Growth and development of power electronics technologies to enhance energy yield while reducing balance of system (BOS) hardware costs, process costs and installation time development and field illustration showing smart inverter functionalities
• Growth and development of faster existence testing means of full PV systems
• Physics of failure models to calculate problems and improve longevity of PV systems

Communications help inform grid operations effectively rich in-level integration of solar, requiring visibility across multiple spatial scales (in the finish-user load with the distribution substation and beyond) and also at multiple time scales (from microseconds to hrs and days).

Topics of great interest include, but aren’t restricted to:

• Advances in information, communication, and sensor technologies to adequately monitor the behaviour and manage the outcome from the solar technologies integrating in to the grid
• Enterprise level integration of PV management systems with grid management systems
• Growth and development of open and interoperable communication and control architectures
• Growth and development of communication needs for example network latency, scalability, and availability
• Implementation of normal communication protocols in inverter hardware and enterprise software
• Illustration showing finish-to-finish system integration and interoperability on actual distribution feeders with utilities.

S-504 Concentrating Solar Energy Materials and Systems

Possible Disciplines: Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science

Concentrating solar energy (CSP) technologies use light collecting elements to target and sunlight onto receivers, which convert the solar flux to heat. This thermal energy will be accustomed to produce electricity, typically using a turbine or heat engine. Through the use of heat because the energy input, CSP is complementary with other types of renewable energy generation that depend on intermittent powers (e.g. photovoltaics and wind) because of the relative ease in storing thermal energy. Thermal energy storage (TES) may be easily built-into a CSP plant, and CSP is exclusive among renewable technologies for the reason that the combination of one’s storage really cuts down on the Levelized Price of Electricity (LCOE) of the CSP plant, up to and including capacity factor of roughly 70%. The elevated affordability is a result of better usage of the ability block for additional hrs of the season and the opportunity to harness excess energy in the solar field. The greater amounts of power production and the opportunity to shift power production to higher coincide with peak loads match increases in revenues. Thus, the relatively small costs connected having a well-designed TES system could be considerably offset through the improved performance from the CSP plant.

A properly-designed CSP TES product is one which has a high energetic efficiency, (Eq. 1), in addition to a high exergetic efficiency, (Eq. 2), as defined,

where Qin may be the total energy transferred in the heat transfer fluid (HTF) towards the storage system during charging, Qout may be the total energy transferred in the storage system towards the HTF during discharging, TPB may be the temperature from the working fluid in the inlet from the turbine in Kelvin, TRO may be the temperature from the HTF in the outlet from the receiver in Kelvin, and Its the ambient temperature nominally come to be 298K. SunShot targets an expense-effective TES system as getting 99% energetics efficiency and 95% exergetic efficiency.

TES might be grouped into three classes: Sensible (employing a material’s natural heat capacity), Latent (using the latent heat involved with a specific phase transition), and Thermochemical (in line with the heat of reaction for any highly reversible chemical reaction). While each class has its own unique challenges, all classes take advantage of realizing high values for volumetric energy density. To offer the SunShot Initiative’s cost targets, modeling, designing, and testing of TES systems must validate an installed price of $15 per kilowatt-hour-thermal (kWhth). Further, applicants must show the suggested TES design works with high-efficiency power cycles ( 50% thermal-to-electric) which have been recognized as essential to meeting SunShot CSP targets. For instance, for novel supercritical CO2-based cycles, the TES system must provide heat towards the turbine working fluid at

1 Stekli, J. Irwin, L. Pitchumani, R. “Technical Challenges and Possibilities for Concentrating Solar Energy With Thermal Energy Storage,” ASME Journal of Thermal Science Engineering and Applications Vol. 5, No. 2 Article 021011 2013 dx.doi.org/10.1115/1.4024143 .

Topics of great interest include, but aren’t restricted to:

• Novel concepts for that solar thermochemical sulfur cycle – i.e. solar thermal activation of sulfuric acidity, or any other oxidized sulfur compound, to create easily-stored elemental sulfur. Of particular interest could be innovative catalysts, materials, and reactor designs to boost the response rate from the preferred SO3 SO2 conversion process. Novel designs may make the most of exterior forces (including although not restricted to pressure, electromagnetism, centrifugation, yet others) in order to shift thermodynamic equilibria in support of preferred products while concurrently disfavoring the generation of sulfate (SO42-) along with other thermodynamic sinks within the hot temperature SO3/SO2 disproportionation reactor.
• Novel thermochemical materials or cycles for top volumetric energy density storage systems ( 3000 MJ/m3), including self-healing systems, or any other design strategies able to economical, simple, periodic regeneration.
• The introduction of Pickering emulsions to improve the soundness and volumetric energy density of sensible and latent TES material systems, including using such materials to lessen the corrosive nature of molten chloride heat transfer fluids.
• High-temperature ( 650°C), low-cost ( $15/kWhth) thermal or thermochemical storage materials suitable for advanced fluids and cycles

S-505 Photovoltaic Materials, Devices, and Modules

Possible Disciplines: Materials Science and Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Applied Physics, Physics, Chemistry

In photovoltaic system hardware, serious materials challenges stay in many commercial and near commercial technologies. Studies are searched for in applied science to enhance performance and drive lower costs of photovoltaic materials, devices, and modules. Listed below are some questions and regions of interest:

• Fundamental knowledge of mechanisms of degradation in PV devices. Growth and development of models according to fundamental physics and material qualities to calculate PV device degradation in a position to predict device lifetime with material based input parameters and stress conditions, and also to enable shorter testing some time and high confidence data.
• Methods you can use to recycle modules and related components when PV modules achieve finish of existence.
• Methods to lessen the gap between module and cell efficiencies planning to achieve single junction module efficiencies of 25% or multi-junction module efficiencies of 40%.
• New multi-junction solar panel architectures and fashions that will lead to greater efficiency cells.
• Earth abundant PV materials (absorber, TCO, etc.) to allow TW degree of deployment.
• Novel methods for charge separation and extraction, light trapping, or device design that may outshine a p-n junction architecture.
• New module architectures and innovative non-cell, module components which allow greater module efficiency, less expensive and/or improved reliability.
• Growth and development of new probing strategies to overcome material limitations to get at greater PV device efficiency. Scalable low-cost measurement and portrayal means of cell and modules during fabrication that may later become among the standard in-line metrology tools around the production line.
• Fundamental knowledge of mechanisms of degradation in PV devices and modules. Growth and development of models according to fundamental physics and material qualities to calculate PV

device or module degradation and lifelong with material based input parameters and stress conditions, and also to enable shorter testing some time and high confidence data.

Novel methods for charge separation and extraction, light trapping, or device design that may outshine traditional p-n junction architectures.

Methods you can use to recycle modules and related components when PV modules achieve finish of existence.

New multi-junction solar panel architectures and fashions that will lead to greater efficiency cells

Earth abundant PV materials (absorber, TCO, etc.) to allow TW level deployment.