IUCRC Phase III - The University of Texas at Austin: Center for a Solar Powered Future (SPF2050)

太阳能未来中心（SPF2050）是一个工业/大学合作研究中心（IUCRC），从事与太阳能产业相关的研究。阳光提供了一种广泛可用的能源，可以通过光伏（PV）设备或太阳能电池直接转化为电能，在运行过程中不会产生污染、排放或温室气体。SPF2050的愿景是使美国和世界在2050年之前实现使用太阳能作为资源的零碳足迹。SPF2050促进行业创新者、世界级学术团队和政府机构之间的密切和持续的合作，以开发更高性能和更低成本的太阳能电池，提高光伏组件和系统的可靠性，并通过解决与太阳能使用相关的各种各样、复杂、多方面、跨学科和多行业的技术挑战，实现太阳能发电系统的广泛采用和使用。SPF2050的研究促进了经济增长和发展，同时为学生、年轻学者和教师研究人员提供了教育机会，创造了一支多样化和训练有素的劳动力队伍，以及下一代行业领导者。SPF2050还积极参与公共教育和社会推广活动。全球能源可持续性是现代社会面临的最重要挑战之一。即使以目前光伏部署的显著增长率计算，实现世界上大部分无碳能源仍需要几十年的时间。增加光伏发电的使用需要在光伏技术、成本和社会前景方面逐步改进。在SPF2050的德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校进行的研究范围从具有超高效率和性能的多结和双面薄膜光伏的开发到用户可部署的，轻质和廉价的光伏为物联网设备供电。研究工作还包括增加对半导体材料和界面特性的了解，改进光伏设备的设计和制造，提高光伏组件和系统的性能和可靠性，开发新的，更有效的回收方法，以及创建循环太阳能经济。该中心还探索在农村和城市环境中创造性地利用土地的新方法，将新兴的存储技术与太阳能发电相结合，以缓解间歇性和可变性问题，与广泛使用太阳能有关的技术经济和社会经济挑战，以及确定在运输、供暖和制冷部门实现太阳能电气化的新方法。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Center for a Solar Powered Future (SPF2050) is an Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) that performs research relevant to the solar power industry. Sunlight provides a widely available energy source that can be converted directly to electricity by photovoltaic (PV) devices, or solar cells, without generating pollution, emissions or greenhouse gases during operation. The vision of SPF2050 is to enable the US and the world to achieve a zero-carbon footprint by 2050 using solar energy as a resource. SPF2050 promotes close and sustained engagement between industry innovators, world-class academic teams, and government agencies to develop higher performance and lower cost solar cells, improve PV component and system reliability, and enable widespread adoption and use of solar power systems by addressing the extensive range of diverse, complex, multi-faceted, interdisciplinary and multi-industry technology challenges associated with the use of solar power. SPF2050 research catalyzes economic growth and development, while providing educational opportunities to students, young scholars and faculty researchers to create a diverse and highly trained workforce as well as next generation of industry leaders. SPF2050 is also active in public education and societal outreach. Global energy sustainability represents one of the most important challenges facing modern society. Even with today’s significant growth rate for PV deployment, it will take several decades to achieve a majority of carbon-free energy for the world. Increased use of PV electricity requires step-change improvements in PV technology, cost, and societal perspective. Research performed at the University of Texas - Austin site in SPF2050 ranges from the development of multijunction and bifacial thin film PV with ultrahigh efficiency and performance to user-deployable, light-weight and inexpensive PVs to power internet-of-things devices. Research efforts also include increased understanding of semiconductor materials and interface properties, improved PV device design and manufacturing, improved performance and reliability of PV components and systems, development of new, more effective ways to recycle at end-of-life, and the creation of a circular solar power economy. The Center also explores creative, new approaches to land use in both rural and urban environments, integration of emerging storage technologies with solar power generation to alleviate problems of intermittency and variability, techno-economic and socio-economic challenges associated with widespread solar power use, and identification of new approaches to solar-powered electrification in transportation, heating and cooling sectors.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.