The Department of Energy has announced a request for information to determine how the DOE can best invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) authority that was invoked by President Biden in June accelerate domestic production of key technologies, strengthen U.S. power grid reliability, and deploy clean energy.

This is the initial step to set the DPA in motion.

The national defense imperative to strengthen the U.S. clean energy manufacturing base has become more urgent. Russia’s war on Ukraine and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global supply chains and underscored the dangers of our overreliance on foreign sources for grid components and fossil fuels from adversarial nations. In the electricity sector, supply chain challenges such as wait times for upward of two years for grid transformers have coincided with an increase in climate-fueled disasters, such as hurricanes and wildfires, that threaten grid reliability. Building the domestic energy industrial base necessary to maintain and strengthen grid reliability and resilience is critical to the U.S. economy and our national defense.

“The Defense Production Act provides us with a vital tool to make targeted investments in key technology areas that are essential to ensuring power grid reliability and achieving our clean energy future,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said in a statement. “DOE is eager to continue hearing ideas from industry, labor, environmental, energy justice, and state, local and Tribal stakeholders about how we can best use this powerful new authority to support the clean energy workforce and technologies needed to combat climate change.”

The Defense Production Act gives the president the authority to mobilize a certain industry in order to advance national security. Under the law, the president can prioritize contracts for certain types of products and use financial incentives to expand manufacturing capacity.

The department is specifically seeking to gather information on technology supply chain challenges and opportunities, domestic manufacturing, workforce investment and issues related to equality.

Responses to the RFI must be submitted by 5 p.m. (EST) on November 30, 2022.

Submit all comments to dpaenergy@hq.doe.gov and include “RFI: Defense Production Act” in the subject line.