SERIIUS Research Thrusts

SERIIUS' three research thrusts ensure high-impact research and development to address key technical barriers in solar electricity generation. These thrusts and their associated activity areas provide the framework for an initial set of consortium and core projects. The objectives of the thrusts and activity areas are described below.

Sustainable Photovoltaics Develop next-generation materials, devices, and manufacturing processes tailored to India's needs, environment, and resource availability. The three activity areas are:

Earth-Abundant Photovoltaics and Advanced Processing —Develop new scalable absorbers based on Earth-abundant materials and processes.
Advanced Process/Manufacturing Technology—Develop ink-based processes for photovoltaic elements based on new flexible substrates and printing techniques.

Graphic of a matrix that shows research thrusts in three columns. Below the thrusts are activities: three in the Sustainable Photovoltaics thrust, three in the Multiscale Concentrating Solar Power thrust, and two in the Solar Energy Integration thrust.

Multiscale Modeling and Reliability—Couple materials to module modeling with real-world reliability testing to provide direct feedback to the materials and process development tasks.

Multiscale Concentrated Solar Power Overcome critical science and engineering challenges for reliable multiscale (including small 25–500 kW) concentrating solar power systems. The three activity areas are:

High-Temperature, High-Pressure, Closed-Cycle CO2 Brayton Cycle—Develop supercritical, 20–80 bar, 600°–800°C Brayton cycle with >50% efficiency (100 kW to 1 MW).
Low-Temperature Organic Rankine Cycle—Develop organic Rankine cycle with operating at <330°C and with efficiency >20% (25 kW to 1 MW).
Thermal Storage and Hybridization—Develop hybridized storage systems for the diverse temperature ranges of the Brayton and Rankine converters in the first two tasks.

Solar Energy Integration: Identify and assess key technical, economic, environmental, and policy barriers to enable a research agenda for technical readiness in India and to benefit the United States. The two activity areas are:

Roadmapping and Assessment—Analyze the necessary market, policy, and technology data to develop roadmaps for the bankable deployment options for solar electric conversion.
Solar Energy Integration and Storage Analysis—Quantify the interactions of a diverse set of solar electric generators on the grid in India, predict optimum deployment and interconnection, and validate the modeling. Look at the impact of localized storage and validate with test systems.