US Earmarks $128Mln For Effort To Cut Solar Power Cost 60% Over Next Decade - Energy Dept.

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th March, 2021) The United States will invest $128 million in a ten-year program targeting a 60 percent reduction in the cost of solar generated electricity in a bid to create a clean power grid, the Energy Department said in a press release.

"In many parts of the country, solar is already cheaper than coal and other fossil fuels, and with more innovation we can cut the cost again by more than half within the decade," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in the release on Thursday.

Plans include an effort to achieve a utility-scale breakthrough in solar power in the next five years, with the goal of slashing the current cost of 4.

6 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) to 3 cents by 2025 and 2 cents by 2030, the release said.

The $128 million includes $40million for 22 projects to research perovskites, a family of emerging solar materials that have potential to make highly efficient thin-film solar cells with very low production costs, the release added.

Trimming solar energy cost is crucial to achieve President Joe Biden's goal of achieving a 100 percent "clean" US power grid by 2035, according to the release.