Teresa Barnes

Director, National Center for Photovoltaics and DuraMAT | Multi-Institutional Research Leader | Collaboration Builder | Technical Risk Management | Strategic Planning and Communications | Storyteller

Evergreen, Colorado, United States

About

Distinguished Member of Research Staff, Research Advisor, and Director of the DuraMAT research consortium. Versatile leader, team builder, and multi-project manager responsible for strategic planning, establishing multi-institutional collaborations, capability development, and industry partnerships. Principal Investigator for over $30M in research focused the reliability of PV modules and predictability of PV systems. Senior Technical Advisor for project finance of manufacturing and PV facilities.

Experience

  • National Laboratory of the Rockies (21 yrs 4 mos)
    • Director, National Center for Photovoltaics
      Jan 2026 - Present · 7 mos

    • DuraMat Director and Research Advisor
      2016 - Present · 10 yrs 7 mos

      Strategic research advisor for Materials Chemical and Computational Science Center. Principal investigator for the Durable Module Materials Consortium, (DuraMat). DuraMat is a national laboratory consortium focusing on durable materials and designs for photovoltaic modules that will enable lower cost electricity. Responsible for research strategy, soliciting new projects, building teams, understanding industry needs, change management, and developing new research leaders. DuraMAT has 23 collaborative work efforts in the national laboratories, academia, and the US industry. The overarching goal of DuraMAT DuraMat is to discover, develop, de-risk, and enable the rapid commercialization of materials, designs, predictive tests and models for photovoltaic modules that increase performance, extend lifetime, and enable new markets.

    • Group Manager PV Reliability
      Sep 2017 - Jul 2023 · 5 yrs 11 mos

      Group Manager for PV Reliability and Systems Engineering Group at NREL focused on accelerating testing, outdoor field testing, PV module reliability, and energy yield from solar systems. We are building on our expertise in module reliability studies to cover trackers, inverters, BOS, software, sensors, and systems. Principal Investigator and Director of the DuraMAT Consortium for module materials research. Managing a capability network from four national laboratories in collaboration with a fifteen member industry advisory board and our SETO DOE sponsor.

  • Senior Technical Advisor at DOE Loan Programs Office
    Jul 2023 - Jul 2025 · 2 yrs 1 mo

    Technical Advisor for project finance of giga-scale PV and battery manufacturing from viability through due-diligence, conditional commitment, closing, and advance. Collaboration with finance, legal, project management, and executive decision makers to minimize technical project risk due to materials, advanced manufacturing processes, scale-up, first of a kind risk, intellectual property, facility construction, supply chain, offtake, policy considerations, and cost structure.

  • Graduate Research Assistant at Colorado School of Mines
    2000 - 2004 · 4 yrs

    Department of Chemical Engineering