Three world leading solar research institutes signed this week a memorandum of understanding to form the Global Alliance of Solar Energy Research Institutes GA-SERI. The signing ceremony was part of the opening session of the fifth Intersolar North America in San Francisco.

Members of the alliance include the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE (Germany) and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology AIST (Japan).

Collaborative activities among the world's foremost players in the field of solar energy research will lead to a significant acceleration of progress in these fields.

In the alliance, regular scientific exchanges between the three institutions will be the basis for close cooperation. It is intended to have two scientists from each institute in residence at each of the other research centers.

The forming of this alliance is a response to the rapidly growing relevance of solar energy harvesting thermally or with photovoltaics at rapidly decreasing costs.

These technologies will form a key pillar of the future energy system which will be sustainable and carbon-free.

Collaborative activities among the world's foremost players in the field of solar energy research from Germany, Japan, and the US will lead to a significant acceleration of progress in these fields. The alliance will also give the research in this important field a global voice.