During Intersolar North America’s opening session in San Francisco this week, the US Department of Energy’s (DoE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announced its membership of the newly-formed Global Alliance of Solar Energy Research Institutes.
NREL Director Dan Arvizu signed an MOU with Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems and Japan’s Research Centre for Photovoltaic Technologies, a research unit of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. The Global Alliance of Solar Energy Research Institutes aim to speed up the progress towards shared solar research and develop goals as well as safeguarding the sustainable long-term use of solar energy.
“NREL has been a solar energy pioneer since its inception as the Solar Energy Research Institute 35 years ago,” NREL Director Dan Arvizu said. “We are proud to join in this alliance with the leading institutions in Germany and Japan to enhance international solar energy research cooperation.”
The Alliance will focus on a researcher exchange program where each of the three organizations will send researchers to the other participant’s labs for collaborative research lasting anywhere from six months to two years. Details as to when this specific aim will begin were not disclosed.
