DOE to Invest $71M in Domestic Solar Manufacturing, Development

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is making a $71 million investment, including $16 million from President Biden’s infrastructure law, in R&D and demonstration projects aimed at increasing the network of domestic solar manufacturers.

The department selected projects it felt addressed gaps in the domestic solar manufacturing supply chain capacity, including equipment, silicon ingots and wafers, as well as silicon and thin-film PV cell manufacturing. 

“The Biden-Harris administration is committed to building an American-made solar supply chain that boosts innovation, drives down costs for families and delivers jobs across the nation,” says U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. 

“Thanks to historic funding and actions from the President’s clean energy agenda, we’re able to deploy more solar power, the cheapest form of energy, to millions more Americans with panels stamped made in the U.S.”

DOE selected three projects for the Silicon Solar Manufacturing and Dual-Use Photovoltaics Incubator funding program supporting the development of technologies to bring silicon wafer and cell manufacturing onshore. 

Seven additional projects will advance dual-use PV technologies to harness their potential to electrify buildings, decarbonize the transportation sector and reduce land-use conflicts. 

The ten selected projects are: 

Re:Build Manufacturing (Nashua, N.H.): $1.9 million
Silfab Solar Cells (Fort Mill, S.C.): $5 million
Ubiquity Solar (Hazelwood, Mo.): $11.2 million
Appalachian Renewable Power (Stewart, Ohio): $1.6 million 
GAF Energy (San Jose, Calif.): $1.6 million
Noria Energy Holdings (Sausalito, Calif.): $1.6 million
RCAM Technologies (Boulder, Colo.): $600,000
The R&D Lab (Petaluma, Calif.): $1 million
Silfab Solar WA (Bellingham, Wash.): $400,000
Wabash (Lafayette, Ind.): $1.6 million

DOE selected eight projects for the Advancing U.S. Thin-Film Solar Photovoltaics funding program: 

First Solar (Tempe, AZ and Perrysburg, OH): $6 million
Cubic PV (Bedford, MA): $6 million
Tandem PV (San Jose, CA): $4.7 million
Swift Solar (San Carlos, CA): $7 million
5N Plus (Montreal, Canada): $1.6 million
First Solar (Tempe, AZ and Perrysburg, OH): $15 million
Brightspot Automation (Boulder, CO): $1.6 million
Tau Science (Redwood City, CA): $2.1 million 

Before funding is issued, the agency and applicants will undergo a negotiation process, where DOE may cancel negotiations and rescind the selection for any reason during that time.