POWERFILM INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: A18-067
POWERFILM INC — SBIR Phase II award from Department of Defense.
Phase II SBIR prototype / development signal
- Phase II is where Department of Defense funds deeper R&D after feasibility. Incumbents with Phase II history are serious competitors on adjacent topics.
- Use this award as past-performance context and to map customer organizations for STRATFI/TACFI-style transition planning.
- Obligated amount $501,050 is consistent with substantial Phase II-scale effort; compare to related awards from the same agency.
- Topic code A18-067 links this award to a solicitation family — search the same topic stem for incumbents and recompete timing.
- Amount
- $501,050
- Agency
- Department of Defense · Army
- Program / Phase
- SBIR · Phase II
- Topic
- A18-067
- Solicitation
- 18.1
- NAICS
- —
- Place of performance
- IA
- Period
- 2020-02-13 → 2021-06-25
Description
Currently packable panels are made from low efficiency light-weight Amorphous Silicon or carbon fiber backed crystalline silicon. The weakness of the amorphous silicon technology resides in the power conversion efficiency (watts per unit area), while the carbon fiber backed crystalline silicon cells lack field durability, flexibility and are bulky. The solution to this problem is to take the benefits of the two different technologies and combine them to produce a solar fabric that has high power conversion and ultra flexibility. This is accomplished by cutting down high efficiency solar cells and reassembling them into a series of interconnected solar cells in a tile like structure. This tile like structure resembles that of mosaic tile, a grid of 1cm x 1cm or 2cm x 2cm solar cells series and parallel connected. The tile like structure of solar cells is encapsulated with a very thin laminate and is bonded to a ultra-lite flexible fabric. This process creates a very light weight, high efficiency, ultra flexible solar module. This contract will take the proof of concept prototypes from the phase 1 contract to manufacturable Ultra-flexible solar modules ready for DOD use.