IRA and CHIPs spurring $1B Solar plant in Oklahoma, $4B Chip plant in California

Funding set aside in the "inflation reduction act" and CHIPs is spurring major plant developments in the US. First, Applied Materials announced a $4 billion chip research and production facility in California and now an italian energy company says it is going to build a massive solar cell manufacturing plant in Oklahoma

Hoping the italian plant isn't built until the combined cell tech that yields 30% energy recovery is ready to be mass produced.

Silicon Valley Chosen for $4 Billion Chip Research Center - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Silicon Valley got its name from computer chips, but no longer plays a central role in shaping how they are made. A major supplier to the industry hopes to change that.

Applied Materials, the biggest maker of machines for producing semiconductors, said on Monday that it planned to build a massive research facility near its hometown, Santa Clara, Calif., to allow chip makers and universities to collaborate on advances to make more powerful chips. Silicon Valley hasn’t seen a comparable semiconductor construction project in more than 30 years, industry analysts say.

The company expects to invest up to $4 billion in the project over seven years, with a portion of that money coming from federal subsidies, while creating up to 2,000 engineering jobs.

The plan is the latest in a string of chip-related projects spurred by the CHIPs Act, a $52 billion package of subsidies that Congress passed last year to reduce U.S. dependence on Asian factories for the critical components. What sets Applied Materials’ move apart is that it focuses on research, rather than manufacturing, and is a substantial new commitment to the industry’s original hub.

Italy's Enel to invest more than $1 billion in Oklahoma solar panel factory | Reuters

Italy's Enel SpA (ENEI.MI) said on Monday it will invest more than $1 billion in a solar cell and panel factory in Oklahoma, seeking to capitalize on the U.S. push to build a homegrown clean energy manufacturing sector to compete with China.

The facility will be among the largest to produce solar equipment in the United States, where most projects are built with imported panels. It is also one of the first U.S. factories to produce silicon-based solar cells on a large scale.

The investment is one of the biggest in solar manufacturing since the passage of U.S. President Joe Biden's landmark climate change law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), last year. Facilities built with panels containing domestically made cells may receive a lucrative IRA bonus tax credit worth 10% of a project's cost.

Enel, which had first said last year it planned to build a U.S. solar factory, selected a site in Inola, Oklahoma, near Tulsa. It will employ 1,000 people by 2025. The facility will produce 3 gigawatts of solar products annually, with the first panels rolling off the line by the end of 2024. Eventually, production could double to 6 GW per year with an additional 900 jobs created, the company said.

 

OT but maybe not - Spain just produced enough renewable energy to power the entire country during a 9 hour window last Tuesday

Spain Produced Enough Renewable Energy to Power Itself for 9 Hours (businessinsider.com)

 

yes. we need to onshore medicine production too.

 

fyi, EU offered up stimulus to encourage solar production there too.

I think that any major solar production facility being supported by tax funds needs to incorporate the latest advances in tech to get the maximum energy output for the investment. Perovskite material advances have been rapid lately and they seem ready for commercial implementation to decrease the carbon footprint and cost of solar cell production while raising the yield.

Explained: Why perovskites could take solar cells to new heights | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Perovskite solar goes commercial as yield gains align with market forces | Reuters

Tandem cells combine a solar cell that is particularly efficient in the infrared part of the solar spectrum with another that is optimised in the blue and ultraviolet (UV) range. The theoretical conversion limit for silicon cells is around 29% and tandem silicon-perovskite cells could increase this to 43%.

Oxford PV plans the commercial launch of its perovskite-on-silicon tandem cell this year, predicting a conversion efficiency of 27% and an energy yield of 24%, compared with a yield of around 20%-22% for most of the silicon panels currently on the market.

The company plans to expand its pilot factory near Berlin, Germany and scale up production to 10 GW by the end of the decade.

In France, the IPVF solar institute has partnered with French manufacturer Voltec Solar to build a solar panel factory that will produce Tandem 4T Perovskite/Silicon cells. The partners aim to start production in 2025 and ramp up capacity to 5 GW by 2030.

 

Utility company has agreed to provide power from fusion in 2028. Bill gates had microsoft commit to buying electrity from them. Open AI founder big investor

Microsoft signs power purchase deal with nuclear fusion company Helion

Helion's plant is expected to be online by 2028 and will target power generation of 50 megawatts or greater after a one-year ramp-up period, it said. One megawatt can supply up to about 1,000 U.S. homes on a typical day.

"Fifty megawatts is a big first step of commercial-scale fusion, and the revenue feeds right back into us developing more power plants and getting fusion out on the grid both in the United States and internationally as fast as possible," David Kirtley, Washington state-based Helion's founder and CEO, said in an interview
....
Polaris, Helion's seventh-generation machine, should come online next year and demonstrate electricity generation, using pulsed high-power magnet technologies to achieve fusion, Kirtley said. In 2021, Helion was the first private company to achieve 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit) and the optimum temperature for fusion is about twice that, Kirtley said.
While many fusion companies are looking to tritium, a rare hydrogen isotope, to help fuel reactions, Helion plans to use Helium 3, a rare type of the gas used in quantum computing.
Helion has so far raised more than $570 million in private capital, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman providing $375 million in 2021.