A team working to improve solar panel technology, led by the University of Colorado Boulder, has lost its grant from the Department of Energy amid a to energy projects initiated by President Donald Trump’s administration during the government shutdown.
The grant was awarded to the , or Tandems for Efficient and Advanced Modules using Ultrastable Perovskites. TEAMUP’s goal is to develop a way to manufacture a new type of solar module for solar panels with higher energy efficiency than existing options. The consortium is led by CU Boulder and includes four universities, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and perovskite companies.
The entire Department of Energy grant was for $9.2 million, and $5.6 million will be lost due to the cancellation, according to TEAMUP Project Director Michael McGehee. Part of the grant was given directly to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. CU Boulder’s share of the grant is $8.3 million, and of that, $4.8 million was yet to be awarded, according to CU Boulder spokesperson Nicole Mueksch.
The three-and-a-half-year , and some of the grant funds have been frozen since Jan. 1. McGehee received notice the funding would be cancelled in the day or two after the despite only ever receiving excellent evaluations.
The team works on designing and building tandem solar cells where a perovskite solar cell is stacked on top of a silicon solar cell. Perovskite is a mineral, and use material created synthetically that have similar structures to the mineral. Solar cells are electronic devices that convert light into electricity, and pairing the two different types of solar cells together can improve efficiency.
“We think in the future we could get 50% more power with the tandems,” McGehee said. “So itap a very powerful upgrade to the solar panels that are being widely used today.”
McGehee will be able to continue working on perovskite solar cells, generally through two other grants he has. But he will be forced to reduce the size of the team further due to the funding cut. He used to have a team of 18 students. He has a team of four students now and expects to have to reduce it to two students within a year. In his 25 years of being a professor, he’s most proud of his students, many of whom have started successful companies or become professors themselves. He doesn’t see a way for that pipeline to continue as it once did.
“It would’ve been one thing if the government had announced there would be no future funding for solar, and I would’ve had a couple more years to finish this project,” McGehee said. “I would’ve had time to think about whatap next.”
Since the shutdown began, Trump and the Office of Management and Budget have frozen or canceled more than $550 million in federal funding from the Department of Energy for Colorado, including $386.8 million in grants within . The largest single terminated grant was nearly $300 million at Colorado State University. Several companies also lost grant funding, including Boulder solar energy company and Louisville’s , which provides AI-powered, automated sorting services to companies and municipalities for recycling and solid waste.
