Remarks Prepared for Delivery by
Dr. Raymond L. Orbach
Under Secretary for Science
U.S. Department of Energy
At the Announcement of Solar America Initiative Grants
Boeing Spectrolab
Sylmar, CA
March 9, 2007

Thank you.  It’s a pleasure to be here this afternoon.

Over the past year, President Bush has laid out an aggressive strategy to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, to increase the energy efficiency of our economy, and to expand the availability of clean, affordable renewable energy.  Known as the Advanced Energy Initiative, this ambitious program aggressively funds research and development projects to achieve breakthroughs in a variety of alternative and renewable energy fields, including solar power. 

And so, today I’m very pleased to announce the selection of 3 of the 13 industry-led R&D partnerships that will help to harness the enormous potential of the sun’s energy and change the way that all Americans power our homes and businesses.  These 3 projects are focused on accelerating the commercialization of solar photovoltaic systems.  They will receive, in total, up to $35 million in DOE funding over the next three years.

Solar energy is a clean, abundant and renewable energy source that can: increase our nation’s electricity-generating capacity, particularly during periods of peak demand, reduce our dependence on natural gas, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation overall.  Distributed solar technologies will enable the ultimate goal of affordable zero-energy homes and buildings. 

The President’s Solar America Initiative represents the U.S. government’s largest-ever single investment in commercialization projects for solar photovoltaics: in total, $168 million over three years.  But even more impressively, these awards are the very definition of public-private partnerships.  Over 50 companies, 14 universities, 3 non-profits and 2 national laboratories are involved – in 20 states.  And, the industry-led teams will contribute over 50% of the total funding for these projects – an investment of $189 million over and above the federal commitment.  So, we are talking about a total investment of more than $350 million over three years. 

Overall, we expect these 13 partnerships to address two fundamental challenges.  First, they will help lower the cost of electricity from photovoltaics to a price that is cost-competitive in markets nationwide.  And secondly, they will enable the widespread deployment of solar technologies.  We expect these projects will expand the annual production capacity of photovoltaic systems from 240 MW in 2005 to as much as 2,850 MW by 2010 – a greater than 10-fold increase in three years. 

At the same time, the Department through its Office of Science, which I have the privilege to direct, is aggressively pursuing basic research in the physical sciences--what I call “transformational science”--aimed at achieving a new generation of breakthrough technologies that will push the cost-effectiveness and scalability of renewable energy sources to even higher levels. 

We are supporting cutting-edge work in materials science and nanotechnology aimed at achieving dramatically increased efficiencies in photovoltaic panels.  We are charting new paths in electrical energy storage research that will eventually enable intermittent renewable energy sources like solar and wind to make major contributions to electrical base load generation.  And we are supporting advanced materials research--along with modeling and simulation, using DOE’s world-leading supercomputing compatibilities--on the way to developing a next-generation power grid better suited to the distributed generation of all renewable energy sources.  We believe that American industry will one day benefit powerfully from the discoveries flowing from this transformational research and that it will eventually help midwife a new generation of renewable energy technologies.

The bottom line is: solar power must be a significant component of our nation’s energy supply.  And to ensure that it is, we must get the costs down and get these technologies out into the marketplace. 

We must continue to aggressively fund these technologies, to demand ambitious results, and to support their commercialization and widespread deployment.  And, in so doing, we will depend on partnerships like the ones we are announcing today – where corporations, universities, and public agencies come together to address one of the most pressing challenges that America faces.  The “clean energy revolution” is underway.  And it will happen right here in California and across this great nation.

Again, I thank you for being here.