UNC-CH lands $17.5M in federal funding for solar energy center

Updated April 29, 2009

UNC-CH lands $17.5M in federal funding for solar energy center

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Chapel Hill, N.C. —

Efforts to develop solar energy are being energized at UNC-Chapel Hill with a $17.5 million grant from the federal government.

The U.S. Department of Energy will provide some $17.5 million over the next five years for development of next-generation solar photovoltaic technology, UNC said Wednesday.

The UNC effort will also include scientists and researchers at North Carolina State University, Duke University, North Carolina Central University and the University of Florida. Some 20 UNC-CH faculty members will be directly involved as well as an estimated 30 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students.

Thomas Meyer, professor of chemistry at UNC, will lead the center.

The cross-discipline program is one of 46
“Energy Frontier Research Centers” that are being set up as part of the Obama Administration’s scientific research and development efforts that the president announced Monday. The EFRCs were selected from 260 applicants to the Department of Energy Office of Science last year.

UNC-CH’s program also will be integrated with the Research Triangle Energy Consortium, which includes UNC-CH, Duke, NCSU and RTI International.

"This is great news for UNC and for North Carolina,” Meyer said in a statement. “It will enable us to become national and international leaders in what may be the most important endeavor of our time, creating a sustainable energy future.”

Meyer, who at one time was an associated lab directory at Los Alamos National Laboratory, has also served as vice chancellor for graduate studies and research at UNC-CH. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Funding will be used for research into artificial photosynthesis as well as new photovoltaics.

Energy centers are being established in four categories, according to the Department of Energy:

• Renewable and Carbon-Neutral Energy (Solar Energy Utilization, Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems, Biofuels, Geological Sequestration of CO2); 20 EFRCs
• Energy Efficiency (Clean and Efficient Combustion, Solid State Lighting, Superconductivity); 6 EFRCs
• Energy Storage (Hydrogen Research, Electrical Energy Storage); 6 EFRCs
• Crosscutting Science (Catalysis, Materials under Extreme Environments, other); 14 EFRCs

Click here for a complete list of centers.