Annual Report- Part III - Florida Energy Systems Consortium

PI: Don Morel – USF, Co-PIs: Chris Ferekides, Lee Stefanakos - USFDescription: The primary goal of this project is to enable the establishment and success of local solarphotovoltaic manufacturing companies to produce clean energy products for use within the state andbeyond and to generate jobs and the skilled workforce needed for them. Thin film technologies have shownrecord efficiencies of 20%, and present tremendous opportunities for new Florida start-up companies. USF,UCF, and UF are collaborating to develop a pilot line facility for thin film solar technologies, which willserve as a test bed for making ongoing improvements in productivity and performance of solar modules,develop advanced manufacturing protocols, and help train a skilled workforce to ensure the success of newcompanies.Budget: $1.6MExternal Collaborators: Mustang Solar, a Division of Mustang Vacuum SystemsBack to Thrust 1: OverarchingAdvanced PV Device ProgramTitle: Research to Improve Photovoltaic (PV) Cell Efficiency by Hybrid Combination of PV andThermoelectric Cell Elements.PIs: Nicoleta Sorloaica-Hickman, Robert Reedy - UCF/FSECDescription: Photovoltaic/thermoelectric (PV/TE) cell integration is a promising technology to improvedperformance and increase the cell life of PV cells. The TE element can be used to cool and heat the PVelement, which increases the PV efficiency for applications in real-world conditions. Conversely, the TEmaterials can be optimized to convert heat dissipated by the PV element into useful electric energy,particularly in locations where the PV cell experiences large temperature gradients, i.e. use thethermoelectric module for cooling, heating and energy generation depending on the ambient weatherconditions. Thus, the goal of this research effort is to research and develop nanoscale design of efficientthermoelectric material through a fundamental understanding of the materials properties and to design andbuild a photovoltaic thermoelectric (PV/TE) hybrid system.Budget: $167,820Back to Thrust 1: OverarchingTitle: PV Devices Research and Development LaboratoryPI: Robert Reedy Co-PI’s: Nicoleta Sorloaica-Hickman, Neelkanth Dhere - UCF/FSECDescription: The primary challenge facing the PV industry is to dramatically reduce the cost/watt ofdelivered solar electricity by approximately a factor of 2 to 3, to increase the manufacturing volume by afactor of 10 and to improve the cell efficiencies by a factor of 2 to 3. This task will conduct R&D on basicscience of PV cells and develop a world class PV cell laboratory for future cell research. The R&D willfocus on developing new and improved PV cells such as organic PV, nano-architectures, multipleexcitation generation, plasmonics, and tandem/multi-junction cells.Budget: $450,250Title: Beyond Photovoltaics: Nanoscale Rectenna for Conversion of Solar and Thermal Energy toElectricityPI: Shekhar Bhansali, Co-PIs: Elias Stefanakos, Yogi Goswami, Subramanian Krishnan - USFDescription: The main objective of the proposal is to commercialize and scale up a new technology,rectenna to convert waste heat energy to electricity. Although the prediction of highly efficient (~85%)solar rectennas was published almost 30 years ago, serious technological challenges have prevented suchdevices from becoming a reality. Since the ultimate goal of a direct optical frequency rectenna photovoltaicpower converter is still likely a decade away, we plan to convert optical solar radiation to thermal radiation(~30 THz regime) using an innovative blackbody source. Leveraging the research efforts of the world-class75