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PHILADELPHIA--As NREL's senior supervisor managing the DOE's Photovoltaic Technology Incubator program, Martha Symko-Davies has helped tend one of the more fertile spawning grounds for companies trying to develop disruptive, innovative PV approaches that have a decent shot at getting to commercial-scale  production. Although not every winner of an incubator award will successfully navigate from prototype to pilot to full production, companies like SolFocus and Abound Solar have entered the market full steam ahead thanks in part to the incubation program.

Some companies with intriguing ideas that tried to get an incubator award in the past weren't far enough along to be considered for funding, something which has frustrated Symko-Davies. She wanted to find a way to help small companies in earlier stages of development—more in the "big R, little d" phase of their work—which needed a boost to "bridge the gap" between their proofs of concept and the prototyping stage. But alas, with perennially flat budgets (and no will to take from Peter to pay Paul), monies could not be appropriated.

But then along came the renewable-minded Obama administration and the flush coffers of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In yet another disbursement of funds for solar power, Symko-Davies' dream has come true with the allocation of $16.4 million for continuation of the incubator awards, from which $6 million will be drawn for the establishment of a preincubation program.

She talked about the technology incubation program—and officially announced the new preincubation program—during a Tuesday afternoon (cue Moody Blues song here) presentation at the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference.  After outlining details of the incubation program—which has awarded 18-month grants of as much as $3 million to two rounds’ worth of companies in 2007-2008 and is gearing up for another round (proposals are due in mid-July)—she spoke about the new program which will offer recipients a year's worth of funding for getting onto a "short-term path to commercial viability."

Thirteen companies have been selected for negotiations to participate in preincubation for awards up to $500,000. When I caught up later with Symko-Davies (pictured below), I asked her how the process worked and what those "negotiations" entailed.

"They responded to the letter of interest," she explained. "We selected them for negotiation, we sent a request for proposal, which is a full-blown cost proposal, and we have to negotiate a statement of work. It's not much different than their response to the LOI, but the cost proposal part is much meatier and somewhat of an auditing process."

Since "negotiations" don’t always equate with "done deal" in business and government circles, I wondered if there might be companies who decide to drop out. "Typically, most or all selected for negotiations end up selected. "Once in awhile it happens" that a company might withdraw. "Maybe they don't like working with our contracts, or there's some legal issue."

The companies "have to be a small business, and they have to respond to the LOI like everyone else. We review them based on what they responded to." What constitutes a "small business"? A larger number than some might think. Firms that employ "500 or less, though typically we see from the low end, 2 or 3 guys, up to 70 or 80," she noted.

The process should be completed in about two months, according to Symko-Davies, and then the funds will be disbursed. During the course of the companies’ preincubation program participation, "they have deliverables along the way to take them to that prototype."

The preincubatees will get access to the national lab's vast pool of growth and characterization tools and technology specialists as well as the PDIL, or Process Development and Integration Lab. "Working with NREL to overcome those hurdles to get to a prototype, so when in four years from now they actually take their prototype to pilot scale production, they won't have rushed the research. So if there are reliability issues or other science issues, they've actually done the research" at the lab.

I noticed among the list of "proposals selected for negotiation" for the preincubation program a couple of companies—1366 Technologies and MicroLink Devices—that are already participating in the incubation program. Symko-Davies said that companies were eligible, even if already incubationally involved, when "they have other novel, new ideas."

The range of preincubation technologies spans the disruptive PV innovation spectrum, encompassing devices, processes, and materials enhancements in the crystalline silicon, inorganic and organic thin films, and high-efficiency concentrator areas—with a heavy dollop of nanoscale solution concepts. Wafer-,  glass-, and flexible substrate-based schemes are all in the mix.

Some companies are reasonably familiar—CIGS players Ascent Solar and International Solar Electric Technologies (ISET), Intel c-Si spinoff SpectraWatt, transfer-print process and tool developer Semprius, and thin-film producer EPIR. Other participants are less so, such as Vanguard Solar, TiSol, Banyan Energy, Crystal Solar, Lightwave Power, and Luna Innovations (which sports a curious name for a solar company).

Symko-Davies' enthusiasm about the programs is downright palpable, something she evidently shares with one of her bosses. "Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu was out visiting us," she said. "He was really excited about the incubator program. I actually got to speak with him." Not only did she chat with Chu, but a photo of her shaking the Secretary's hand appeared in the New York Times.

"I truly do believe that a lot of these are disruptive technologies that are going to able to be below a dollar per watt" and get to grid parity by 2015, she enthused. As she said during her conference presentation, indirectly paying homage to the PV industry’s cost leader, "we’re trying to create the Second Solars, the Third Solars, and the Fourth Solars."