SOLAR ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: FEDERAL AND PRIVATE SECTOR ROLES

ABSTRACT:
The Energy Research Advisory Board convened a Solar R&D Panel to determine the status of the solar industry and solar R&D in the United States and to recommend to DOE appropriate roles for the Federal and private sectors. The Panel's report acknowledges the new Administration policy

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reorienting the Federal role in energy development to long-term, high-risk, high payoff R&D, and leaving commercialization to the private sector. The Panel's recommendations are further predicated on an assumption of continued, substantially reduced funding in the near-term. The Panel found that solar energy technologies have progressed significantly in the past ten years and represent a group of highly promising energy options for the United States. However, it also found the solar industry to be in a precarious condition, due to the risks of initiating a new technology, current economic conditions, fluctuating energy demand and prices and uncertain Federal tax and regulatory policies. The Business Energy and Residential Tax Credits are essential to the near-term health of the solar industry. Commercialization has already begun for some solar technologies; for others, decreases in Federal funding will result in a slowdown or termination. The primary Federal roles in solar R&D should be in support of basic and applied research, high-risk, high payoff technology development and other necessary research for which there are insufficient market incentives. The Federal Government should also move strongly to transfer technology to the private sector for near-commercial technologies. Large demonstration and commercialization projects cannot be justified for Federal funding under current economic conditions. These should be pursued by the private sector.

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