The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $71 million in financial support for research and development to onshore solar wafer and cell manufacturing. The funding for 18 selected projects aims to address gaps in the domestic solar manufacturing supply chain and open new markets for solar technologies.
A total of 10 projects have been selected for Silicon Solar and Dual-Use Photovoltaics Incubator funding program. These include projects by Silfab Solar Cells for its Fort Mill, South Carolina factory, and also for its Bellingham, Washington factory where it will develop back contact solar cells and high efficiency silicon solar spandrels.
Among the winners in this category is Ubiquity Solar, which has won an $11.2 million DOE grant to develop single crystal ingot growth using continuous Czochralski (CCz) method. Re:Build Manufacturing has been granted $1.9 million to develop and manufacture Czochralski ingot pullers for the solar industry.
A complete list of winners in this category can be viewed here.
For the Advancing US Thin-Film Solar Photovoltaics funding program, the department has picked 8 projects, all of which will attempt to help de-risk tandem thin-film technologies including perovskite materials. These will also support cadmium telluride (CdTe) production.
As one of the winners in the second category, First Solar has secured $6 million to design tandem perovskite and copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) PV modules with 27% efficiency that can be easily manufactured. First Solar has also raised $15 million for its high-density interconnect technology for CdTe modules to boost their efficiency.
Cubic PV will use the $6 million DOE award to design perovskite-silicon tandem PV modules as a reliable commercial product. Tau Sciences has been awarded $2.1 million to develop a new non-contact inspection technology to detect defects in CdTe PV modules.
Winning projects in this category can be viewed here.
This $71 million funding from the US President's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was announced by the White House as part of its efforts to strengthen local manufacturing and protect manufacturers and workers from China's 'unfair trade practices.'
To support local players, the government has also increased Section 201 tariffs on solar cells and also removed bifacial panels from tariff exemption under Section 301 (see Bifacial Solar Panels Lose Section 201 Tariff Protection).