U.S. department of energy photovoltaics research evaluation and assessment

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office seeks to ensure that its investments in photovoltaics (PV) research deliver successful outcomes to the US taxpayer and domestic solar market. A general R&D evaluation and assessment framework is proposed, then used in this case study to examine connections between the documented outputs of funded research and successful market outcomes. This study focuses on three previous investments by DOE through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) from 1988-1998 - the Polycrystalline Thin-Film Program, Thin-Film Partnership, and PV Manufacturing Program (PVMaT) - with a focus on the influence of DOE funding on the advancement of cadmium telluride (CdTe) photovoltaics. Connections among key technical advances in the research and development of CdTe specific DOE/NREL projects, and the CdTe patents produced by those projects are confirmed and put into historical context.