U.S. Energy Secretary Ernie Moniz has an interesting relationship with the solar industry. He's considered by many to be an insider, and as someone who also has strong ties to both oil and gas and the solar industry, he is perhaps the perfect representative of U.S. President Obama's All of the Above energy strategy.
On Wednesday at the Solar Power International trade show in Las Vegas, Secretary Moniz unveiled another $53 million for 40 solar research and development (R&D) project through the SunShot Initiative. These will span several sub-programs, targeting reductions in both hardware and non-hardware soft costs.
Cost reduction is very much a part of shaping our clean energy future, Secretary Moniz told the crowd in the conference hall. We have to work together to continue to grow solar at a brisk pace."
This includes more than $14 million in grants to 10 research institutions, another $14 million to 20 small businesses through the latest round of the SunShot incubator program, and $24 million to 10 solar manufacturers in support of the Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative.
Moniz spoke of the need for robust domestic manufacturing at the conference, however despite large announcements by SolarCity and other companies, large-scale PV manufacturing continues to elude the United States.
As explored in a recent article in the October print edition of pv magazine, the largest U.S. PV makers manufacture mostly in Malaysia and other locations in Southeast Asia. Malaysia offers a 10-year tax exemption for high-technology companies, whereas the U.S. lacks a coherent set of policies to support manufacturing.
Additionally, U.S. Secretary Moniz told the audience to expect a new round of DOE loan guarantees in 2015. However, he did not mention which technologies would be supported, and the most recent loan guarantees have gone to nuclear projects.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.