Solar Energy App

Learn more about Solar Energy Technologies and Funding Opportunities.

Solar Energy App Categories:

- Funding Opportunities

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) supports funding opportunities on photovoltaics, concentrating solar-thermal power, systems integration, technology to market, and soft costs projects.

- Photovoltaics Basics

You're likely most familiar with PV, which is utilized in solar panels. When the sun shines onto a solar panel, energy from the sunlight is absorbed by the PV cells in the panel. This energy creates electrical charges that move in response to an internal electrical field in the cell, causing electricity to flow.

- Systems Integration Basics

Solar energy technology doesn’t end with electricity generation by PV or CSP systems. These solar energy systems must be integrated into homes, businesses, and existing electrical grids with varying mixtures of traditional and other renewable energy sources.

- Soft Costs Basics

A number of non-hardware costs, known as soft costs, also impact the cost of solar energy. These costs include permitting, financing, and installing solar, as well as the expenses solar companies incur to acquire new customers, pay suppliers, and cover their bottom line. For rooftop solar energy systems, soft costs represent the largest share of total costs.

- Going Solar Basics

Solar energy can help to reduce the cost of electricity, contribute to a resilient electrical grid, create jobs and spur economic growth, generate back-up power for nighttime and outages when paired with storage, and operate at similar efficiency on both small and large scales.

- Solar Industry Basics

Solar energy systems come in all shapes and sizes. Residential systems are found on rooftops across the United States, and businesses are also opting to install solar panels. Utilities, too, are building large solar power plants to provide energy to all customers connected to the grid.

- Dive Deeper

Learn more about the innovative research the Solar Energy Technologies Office is doing in these areas.

***Solar Energy App is owned by a private company not affiliated, endorsed, authorized, or licensed by the United States government.

Sources of the information in the app:

https://www.energy.gov/