The Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has recently formed alliances with five U.S. companies to find faster, cheaper ways of manufacturing photovoltaic devices: Astropower, Inc. (Newark, DE), Texas Instruments (Dallas, TX), Solarex Corp. (Rockville, MD), Solar Cells, Inc. (Toledo, OH) and Golden Photon (Golden, CO).

Texas Instruments is trying to improve its "spheral" cells which consist of thousands of tiny silicon balls bonded to a thin, flexible sheet of aluminum. This application would save on costs by allowing photovoltaic cells to utilize less expensive, metallurgical-grade silicon. Likewise, Astropower, Inc. also attempting to use a low-cost substrate, upon which layers of silicon would be deposited.