Published

2 years ago

May 17, 2024

Alice Rush

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.

The post DOE to Invest $71M in Domestic Solar Manufacturing, Development appeared first on Solar Industry.

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

Renewable Energy

Plant-Based Meat Takes Unusual Marketing Tack

Published

8 hours ago

July 21, 2026

Alice Rush

I encourage readers to check out this tongue-in-cheek ad for plant-based meat.

There is a maxim in marketing warning against “promoting the enemy line,” this is so clever, I can see where it could be quite effective.

Plant-Based Meat Takes Unusual Marketing Tack

Renewable Energy

Is Mitch McConnell Still with Us? It’s Important

Published

9 hours ago

July 21, 2026

Alice Rush

As we all know, the GOP will stop at nothing to win the midterms, thus making it impossible to remove the sociopathic criminal from the White House.

But did any of us see this coming?

Macabre.

Is Mitch McConnell Still with Us? It’s Important

Renewable Energy

A Profile in Corporate Greed

Published

10 hours ago

July 21, 2026

Alice Rush

I just met a woman who’s been a flight attendant for Delta Airlines since the early 1990s, who laments that her company has been ruined by corporate greed, which has trashed so many other things in our lives.

As it turns out, the CEO makes more than $20 million per year, largely based on bonuses associated with cutting costs. “Now we have tray tables that don’t work and seatbacks that don’t recline, and nobody even thinks about fixing them.”

She went on, “This shift has been particularly obvious in the case of Delta, which, when I started with them, was known for its southern charm and the feeling of welcoming its passengers. Now, that gone. It’s like it never existed.”