PHASE3 PHOTOVOLTAICS INC — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: 12e

Description

Manufactured and modular homes have roughly 8% of the US population living in them and make up 11% of the new, single-family home starts each year. This fraction is even higher on rural and tribal lands. The industry reported a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.86% in 2018. And yet, solar penetration in this market is negligible, mostly for financing qualification factors. Phase3 Photovoltaics is currently establishing partnerships with 2-3 manufactured home industry players in order to provide solar installation solutions that can be integrated directly into the roofs of their home products, assembled in their factories, and shipped directly to home sites ready for utility hookup.Currently, factory-based home builders have no offerings for solar roofs. This concept, if funded, will customize PV system design packages for high-volume, pre-manufactured homes. The aim is to use mass- production practices in a centralized facility to dramatically lower the installation, permitting, and interconnection costs in lieu of assembling the solar energy systems on-site. The turnkey systems envisioned are wholly inclusive of the entire balance of system components.They will dovetail into energy efficient appliances through an intelligent power management hub located in the home’s control center. The goal is to expedite return on investment by maximizing self-generated power consumption at peak pricing times, such as by offsetting air conditioning loads in the summer months.An added benefit of this approach is that it provides solar power to even the most underserved portion of the US market, so that they too can have access to renewable energy and reap the benefits of lower net monthly bills. It is by leveraging the construction expertise of pre-fabricated home builders that an estimated 40% reduction of installation, operational, and balance-of-system costs is realized relative to on-site, retrofit solar installations. This translates to a conservative projection of $1.60/Wp installed systems, and possibly even more on smaller systems sited in rural and tribal lands.Several economic, engineering, and technical challenges exist that Phase3Photovoltaics hopes to address in this area: (1) The roofing construction methods of prefabricated houses differ from those of site- built structures and modification to the racking, mounting and module frames may be necessary to address static and dynamic loading requirements; (2) transportation of completely assembled solar arrays affixed to prefabricated roofs has never been attempted, and adaptation of mounting hardware capable or withstanding interstate truck and rail shipment is needed; (3) hiring, training and tooling a workforce that is to assemble, wire and test PV systems within a factory environment is new to everyone inthe industry and new quality inspections systems will need to be created. The first step in this project will be to assess the market, and conduct a rigorous economic validation of modeled costs. Because no data exists for this segment of consumer, the ability to gauge viability requires prototyping and in-depth analysis at manufacturing and customer sites.