The USA Department of Energy announced Thursday $45 million in funding to boost the production of solar parts to curb the country’s reliance on imports for the sector.
The grant covers the manufacturing of silicon components and dual-use photovoltaic (PV) incubators. The fund sources $18 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a component of the Biden government’s so-called Investing in American program, which seeks to accelerate the transition to clean energy, boost domestic manufacturing and create jobs.
The grant will fund up to 12 projects “to help establish a network of manufacturers across the domestic solar supply chain focused on polysilicon production, silicon ingots and wafers, solar cells, glass and other module components, and associated manufacturing equipment”, the DOE said in a press release.
The funding also aims to “open new markets for the emerging dual-use PV sectors, in particular agrivoltaics, building-integrated PV, floating PV, and vehicle-integrated PV”, the department added.
“With these innovative, made-in-America technologies, the Biden-Harris Administration is powering the clean energy transition, lowering electricity costs for hardworking Americans, and protecting the future for our children from the impacts of the climate crisis”, Energy Secretary Jennifer M Granholm said in the announcement.
Eighty-four percent of PV modules used in the USA are crystalline silicon while the remaining 16 percent are cadmium telluride, yet the country had no active production for crystalline silicon ingot, wafer or cell, according to a DOE report February 24, 2022.
“About 75 percent of the silicon solar cells incorporated into modules installed in the United States are made by Chinese subsidiaries located in just three Southeast Asian countries: Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand”, the report said.
From 2018 to 2020, over 85 percent of solar cells installed in the USA came from abroad, according to a report by the USA International Trade Commission December 8, 2021.
The DOE has proposed sourcing the majority of cadmium telluride and crystalline silicon from domestic production, as outlined in a white paper it published February.
“There have been 63 domestic manufacturing announcements across the solar supply chain since the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration [2021], including more than 40 of which have been announced since August 2022, the DOE said in Thursday’s announcement.
On April 20 the department unveiled $82 million in grants for research and innovation projects aimed at integrating solar energy into the grid. The biggest allotments have gone to two universities with $9 million each. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Colorado Boulder will lead two separate teams of academic and industry experts to develop solar cells that combine silicon and perovskite PV materials.
Solar projects are also part of the more than $21 million in funding the DOE announced June 22 for the development of technologies and innovations that advance the commercial-scale deployment of clean energy.
Under that grant, the DOE is supporting Sandia National Laboratories for the development of a microgrid product for agrivoltaics, or the production of crops and solar power on the same land.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has three projects picked for that funding. One targets to raise the conversion efficiency limit of cadmium telluride cells by using negative cracked film lithography. Another is for the commercialization of the Reflected Target Non-Intrusive Assessment, a new optical measurement for concentrated solar power (CSP) mirrors. The lab will also “further commercialize the drone-based Non-Intrusive Optical (NIO) Technology for efficient and automated optical characterization of heliostats in CSP”, the department said.
On June 12 the DOE opened applications for a $4 million prize to stimulate innovation in solar hardware and software technologies.
“Hardware innovations should be able to be manufactured in the United States. Software innovations should help address the non-hardware costs of solar, like customer acquisition, financing, and grid integration”, it said of the contest.