The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires the federal government to purchase products and services with certain designated “ecolabels” when they’re available. This includes solar modules and inverters, but until now, only four total solar products have achieved any level of environmental certification — two solar modules by Qcells and two by First Solar. Since no inverters have been certified, government projects can choose any inverter that meets other federal requirements.
“When we talk to manufacturers, we know they have a lot of interest in certifying, but they haven’t gotten there yet,” said Becca Jones-Albertus, director of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO). “We saw a role for the federal government to help companies get there faster and prioritize this.”
SETO is working to expand those eco-friendly options with a new financial incentive. SETO’s American-Made Promoting Registration of Inverters and Modules with Ecolabel (PRIME) Prize is offering cash to manufacturers that take steps to limit the amount of carbon used in manufacturing solar inverters and modules and meet the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) standard. EPEAT is a global ecolabel for electronics and technology products that measures the social and environmental impacts of products from extraction to end of life.
“It does require thoughtful accounting and a real look at the full supply chain, from raw material extraction through product assembly and choices being made to meet those thresholds,” Jones-Albertus said. “You won’t get there through just standard practices. You have to be very intentional in supply chain choices to get those labels.”
There are two phases of the competition. In Phase 1, manufacturers that submit a letter of intent to certify up to four PV modules or inverters and provide proof of registry with the Global Electronics Council (GEC) will win $50,000 in cash. In Phase 2, those winners will submit proof of EPEAT certification of their products and listing from the GEC. Manufacturers will win $100,000 in cash for each of their intended products that achieve certification, up to $400,000 total.
Along with these prize incentives, manufacturers can gain an advantage in federal solar projects and beyond by certifying products to this standard.
“We also know that other institutions tend to look to federal government guidelines to determine what types of priorities they should put in their purchasing power as well. So this may extend beyond federal government purchasing,” Albertus-Jones said.
Competitors can sign up now to follow the competition and stay tuned on when applications open.