MNN - Mother Nature Network

Government funding for clean energy projects continues. Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that Sandia National Laboratories is investing $8.5 million in four projects that are part of the Solar Energy Grid Information Systems (SEGIS) program. This investment will be matched at a greater than one to one ratio bringing the total funding surge to over $20 million.

 

These projects are an important part of creating a clean energy economy here in the United States. Projects funded under the SEGIS program focus on a variety of solar technologies that will help merge today’s expanded solar resources into the current electrical grid.

 

Investments were made in the following projects:

The team in Florida is working on a shared inverter that can serve several residential or commercial PV systems, including the availability of smart grid power controls. Petra Solar South in Plainfield, NJ is working with the UCF team to expand a micro-inverter system to a higher voltage setup.

 

Princeton Power is working to complete a 100-kilowatt demand response inverter so that they can begin the demonstration installation process. The $2.4 million invested at PVPowered will help the company work on next-generation controls and other products that will allow photovoltaic systems to communicate directly with power utilities.

 

For more information about the program, download the SEGIS Program Concept Paper (PDF).