US to Invest $360M+ in Solar Energy Development

The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced plans to invest up to $366 million to establish three new Energy Innovation Hubs that will focus on three key areas, including developing an effective solar energy for a chemical fuel conversion system. Each Hub will be funded at up to $122 million over five years and will bring together a team of researchers in an effort to accelerate scientific discovery to energy-related technological development.

“Given the urgency of our challenges in both energy and climate, we need to do everything we can to mobilize our Nation’s scientific and technological talent to accelerate the pace of innovation. The DOE Energy Innovation Hubs represent a new, more proactive approach to managing and conducting research,” Secretary Chu said in a release.

“We are taking a page from America’s great industrial laboratories in their heyday.  Their achievements—from the transistor to the information theory that makes modern telecommunications possible—are evidence that we can build creative, highly-integrated research teams that can accomplish more, faster, than researchers working separately.” 

The task of the Fuels from Sunlight Hub is to develop a solar fuels system that can operate at an overall efficiency and produce fuel with sufficient energy content to enable the transition to proof of concept prototyping.

Furthermore, the project will also focus on the understanding and designing catalytic complexes or solids that generate chemical fuel from CO2 and water; integration of all essential elements from light capture to fuel formation; evaluation of the solar fuel system under development; improving energy efficient building systems design and computer modeling and simulation for the development of advanced nuclear reactors.

The DOE is expected to provide $22 million during the first year for the establishment of each Hub with a further $25 million per year for each of the following four years to support operations.