The US Department of Energy has awarded Plextronics Inc. of Pittsburgh up to $3 million as part of its Solar America Initiative. Over the course of 18 months, the company will use the funding to commercialize thin-film organic photovoltaic technology for use in low-cost solar modules. The award was issued under the initiative’s Photovoltaic Technology Incubator, a program designed to make solar photovoltaic technologies competitive with existing technologies by 2015.