The U.S Department of Energy (DOE) announced today $45 million in funding to advance the domestic manufacturing of solar energy and electric grid technologies by investing in projects that help the integration of clean energy sourced onto the grid.
According to the DOE, the new awards support the Biden Administration’s goal of a decarbonized power sector by 2035, by funding new technologies and capabilities to bolster the resilience of the U.S. electric grid, and helping to advance the domestic manufacturing of solar energy and electric grid technologies.
$25 million of the DOE awards will go towards the creation of a public-private consortium on grid integration technology, led by The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the University of Washington, and the Electric Power Research Institute, and focused on advancing research on grid-forming inverters. Of the remainder, $14 million will go to nine solar hardware and manufacturing projects aimed at accelerating technologies that can lower the cost of solar and help to integrate solar electricity into the nation’s energy grid, and $6 million to projects developing sensor hardware and system designs to help utilities understand how much renewable energy is being generated by residential and commercial solar photovoltaics.
Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Energy, said:
“To flip the switch on climate change, we need a grid that’s chock full of renewable energy that’s also cheap and accessible. The universities, small businesses, and national lab behind these projects are building the critical components of America’s future grid, making it more resilient on our way to a 100% clean power system.”
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