The US Department of Energy has handed out $71 million to boost domestic solar manufacturing. The announcement talks about 18 projects in 10 states, which sounds like a broad spread of small bets. The award list tells a different story. One company appears twice, and one technology takes most of the money.
Key takeaways
- The US Department of Energy announced on 16 May 2024 that it had awarded $71 million to 18 solar manufacturing projects in 10 states, with $16 million of the total coming from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
- First Solar received two awards under the DOE's Advancing U.S. Thin-Film Solar Photovoltaics programme, $6 million and $15 million, a combined $21 million or nearly 30 percent of the listed awards.
- The DOE's thin-film programme accounts for about $44.0 million across eight awards, against about $26.5 million across ten awards in the Silicon Solar Manufacturing and Dual-Use Photovoltaics Incubator programme.
- Nine of the 18 DOE solar manufacturing awards are worth $1.6 million or less, and six of them are exactly $1.6 million.
- The DOE funding targets gaps in the US solar supply chain, including equipment, silicon ingots and wafers, as well as dual-use applications such as building-integrated photovoltaics and agrivoltaics.
What is the DOE actually paying for?
Research, development and demonstration, not factories. That distinction matters for reading the numbers. A grant of $1.6 million does not build a production line. It pays for the engineering work that decides whether a production line is worth building in the US at all.
The money is split between two funding programmes with different jobs. The Silicon Solar Manufacturing and Dual-Use Photovoltaics Incubator is aimed at gaps the record names in the conventional silicon supply chain, such as equipment, ingots and wafers, plus new uses for panels. Dual-use photovoltaics means solar that does a second job: panels built into roofs and facades, known as building-integrated photovoltaics, or panels mounted over working farmland, known as agrivoltaics.
The thin-film programme backs a different technology. Thin-film modules deposit a very thin layer of light-absorbing material onto glass rather than cutting cells from silicon wafers. That avoids the wafer step entirely, and wafers are one of the supply chain gaps the silicon programme is trying to fill.
Why does one company appear twice?
Because the DOE funded two separate First Solar projects under the same programme. First Solar is listed for $6 million and for $15 million, both at its sites in Tempe, Arizona and Perrysburg, Ohio. Together that is $21 million. No other recipient comes close. The next largest single award is $11.2 million to Ubiquity Solar in Hazelwood, Missouri, under the silicon programme.
That leaves a list of 18 awards with 17 distinct names, and even that count is generous. Silfab appears as two entities, Silfab Solar Cells in Fort Mill, South Carolina with $5 million and Silfab Solar WA in Bellingham, Washington with $400,000. One recipient, 5N Plus, is listed with an address in Montreal, Canada, even though the programme is framed around US states.
The headline of 18 developers therefore overstates how widely the money was spread. Measured by dollars, the programme is concentrated: First Solar, Ubiquity, Swift Solar with $7 million and Cubic PV with $6 million together account for about $45 million, close to two thirds of the total.
How does the split between the two programmes compare?
Thin-film gets the larger share with fewer awards. Its eight projects add up to about $44.0 million, an average of about $5.5 million each. The silicon and dual-use programme spreads about $26.5 million over ten projects, an average of about $2.7 million. Thin-film takes roughly 62 percent of the listed money.
Inside the silicon programme the awards are small and even. Four recipients, Appalachian Renewable Power, GAF Energy, Noria Energy Holdings and Wabash, receive exactly $1.6 million, and RCAM Technologies receives $600,000. Two thin-film recipients, 5N Plus and Brightspot Automation, also receive $1.6 million each. Six identical awards look like a fixed award size rather than amounts tailored to each project. Ubiquity's $11.2 million is the clear exception.
The listed awards sum to about $70.5 million, slightly under the $71 million headline, which is consistent with rounding in the announced figures.
Enerdatics records five US solar financings classed as government grants since the start of 2022. Three of them were announced in 2024: the Environmental Protection Agency's $7 billion residential solar programme in April, this $71 million DOE award in May, and a $140 million grant in August for projects involving Bluestem Energy Solutions and Valley Electric Association. The two earlier grants were much smaller, $4.1 million to Heliogen in October 2022 and about $0.96 million to an undisclosed recipient in March 2022. Against that set, the DOE manufacturing award is the smallest of the 2024 grants by a wide margin.
What does the grant mean for First Solar?
Very little in cash terms, and quite a lot as a signal. Leap records First Solar's other financings over 2023 and 2024: a $1 billion credit facility in July 2023, a sale of up to $700 million of 2023 manufacturing tax credits to Fiserv announced in December 2023, and two further tax credit transfer records totalling $870 million in December 2024. Against those sums, $21 million is a rounding error. Enerdatics has covered how First Solar's $1 billion revolver doubles as a letter of credit line and how First Solar turned US module output into $672 million from Fiserv.
For the smaller recipients the arithmetic runs the other way. A $1.6 million grant can be the difference between a pilot line and no line at all. That is where the programme's real leverage sits, even though most of the dollars go elsewhere.
What does the award signal for US solar manufacturing?
It signals that federal support for solar manufacturing runs on two tracks. The large, durable support comes through tax credits that reward output, which is why First Solar's credit sales dwarf its grant. Grants like this one fill the gaps the tax credits cannot reach: early-stage equipment, unproven processes and parts of the supply chain such as wafers that have no US production to reward yet.
It also shows where the DOE is placing its technology bets. A majority of the money backing thin-film, a technology that skips the wafer stage, suggests the department sees routing around the silicon supply chain as at least as valuable as rebuilding it. For investors tracking which manufacturers will scale in the US, the award list is a useful map of who the DOE thinks is worth backing at the research stage.
Finally, the size of the programme is a reminder of proportion. In the same year, Leap records a $7 billion federal grant programme for residential solar deployment, which the EPA split into fixed tiers. Manufacturing research received about one hundredth of that.
Frequently asked questions
How much did the DOE award for solar manufacturing in May 2024? $71 million across 18 projects in 10 states, announced on 16 May 2024, with $16 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
How much did First Solar receive? Two awards of $6 million and $15 million under the thin-film programme, $21 million in total, for its sites in Tempe, Arizona and Perrysburg, Ohio.
What will the DOE solar manufacturing grants fund? Research, development and demonstration projects to strengthen domestic solar manufacturing, close supply chain gaps in equipment, ingots and wafers, and advance dual-use applications such as building-integrated photovoltaics and agrivoltaics.
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