Small Business Participation in the Department of Energy's Solar Energy Programs

GAO was asked to review a number of matters regarding small business participation in the Department of Energy's (DOE) solar energy programs. The areas reviewed included: (1) the extent to which small businesses participate in the DOE solar energy programs; (2) the DOE efforts to encourage innovativeness by small businesses in the solar area; and (3) the background and experience key DOE officials have in dealing with small businesses. Although DOE has taken some actions to encourage small business participation in carrying out its various energy programs, some Members of Congress and small businesses have criticized DOE for not doing enough to encourage the use of small businesses.

DOE estimates the small businesses' share of solar program funding for fiscal year 1980 to be about 14.5 percent. Direct funding of small businesses for carrying out Federal programs has been relatively low, but small businesses have been much more involved in the solar energy programs by becoming subcontractors to those organizations directly funded by DOE. Although DOE-wide goals have been established, solar-wide goals have not. Some individual solar energy program managers, however, have established goals for their respective programs. The inclusion of small businesses in these programs requires close monitoring, but GAO found that the DOE Integrated Procurement Management Information System (IPMIS) was not delivering adequate information on small businesses. DOE has two programs which are intended to encourage innovations by small businesses, but neither was designed especially for encouraging solar-related ideas, and both are relatively small. However, individual solar program managers have used various funding approaches to encourage innovativeness by small businesses within their respective programs. The prior work experience of 14 key DOE officials associated with the solar energy programs indicated only limited small business experience. In addition, none had received any apparent training aimed at understanding the difficulties that small businesses face.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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