Washington (Platts)--2Aug2011/523 pm EDT/2123 GMT

The US Department of Energy plans to make $50 million available under a new program to help solar-photovoltaic manufacturing companies expand from pilot-projects to commercial scale facilities.

The SUNPATH program, short for Scaling Up Nascent PV At Home, is part of DOE's larger SunShot initiative, which aims to drive down the cost of US-built solar PV to about $1/Watt by 2020, so that the industry can compete with other sources of power, such as natural gas and coal.

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"This investment provides a necessary boost to domestic solar manufacturing businesses, encouraging them to keep jobs here and establish America's leadership in the world's growing clean energy economy," Energy Secretary Steve Chu said in a statement.

The program is the second to support domestic solar manufacturing under the SunShot initiative. The first, aimed at cutting PV module production costs, has already awarded $110 million to three academic and industry consortia.

DOE has set an October 1 deadline for applications for funding under the SUNPATH program.

--Derek Sands, derek_sands@platts.com