Build America, Buy America (BABA)-Compliant Manufactured Products for Energy Systems

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What is BABA?

The Build America, Buy America (BABA) Act provisions within the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act (IIJA) requires that “the head of each federal agency must ensure that none of the funds made available for a federal award for an infrastructure project may be obligated unless all of the iron, steel, manufactured products, and construction materials incorporated into the project are produced in the United States” (2 CFR 184.1). 

Specifically, in the case of manufactured products, the product must be both (a) manufactured in the United States and (b) the cost of components of the manufactured product that are mined, produced, or manufactured in the United States must be greater than 55 percent of the total costs of all the components of the manufactured product (2 CFR Part 184.3). 

Per the BABA regulations, a “component” is defined as: “an article, material, or supply, whether manufactured or unmanufactured, incorporated directly into: a manufactured product; or, where applicable, an iron or steel product” (2 CFR Part 184.3). Components purchased from or manufactured by a domestic source are considered “domestic” for purposes of calculating the domestic content requirement. Once the list of components for a given manufactured item—as well as their origin—is assessed, manufacturers may then use the following instructions, quoted from 2 CFR 184.5, to assess the overall domestic content of the final manufactured product: 

  1. “For components purchased by the manufacturer, 
  • The acquisition cost, including transportation costs to the place of incorporation into the manufactured product (whether or not such costs are paid to a domestic firm), and 
  • Any applicable duty (whether or not a duty-free entry certificate is issued); 
  1. For components manufactured by the manufacturer,
  • All costs associated with the manufacture of the component, including transportation costs as described in paragraph (a) above, plus
  • Allocable overhead costs, but excluding profit. Cost of components does not include any costs associated with the manufacture of the manufactured product.”

The sum of these costs must exceed 55 percent of the total costs of all the components of the manufactured product for that product to be BABA-compliant.

How Can I Find BABA-Compliant Products for Energy Systems?

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Integrated Energy Systems Office is accepting attestations from manufacturers stating what BABA-compliant products for energy systems the manufacturers have available. To date, the following attestations have been submitted, which have been organized by system type:

Please note that the purpose of this webpage is to provide a public service to potential buyers and awarding agencies by collecting and hosting self-attestations from domestic manufacturers that they both (a) manufacture and (b) have available BABA-compliant manufactured products for energy systems for sale. The inclusion of a given manufacturer’s attestation should not be construed as an endorsement or implying the endorsement of any product, service, enterprise, or the like on behalf of DOE. Recipients of federal funding who need to demonstrate BABA compliance must do their own due diligence.

How Can I Join the List of BABA-Compliant Products for Energy Systems?

Download the attestation template. Please format your filename as ManufacturedProduct_YYYYMMDD_CompanyName.pdf where YYYYMMDD is the date of the file submission. The list of completed attestations will be updated on a rolling basis. Incomplete attestations will not be posted. DOE reserves the right to remove any attestation found to be fraudulent, involving a company that is no longer operating, after one year has passed from the date in the file name, or at the direct request of the company which submitted the attestation. Please limit to one attestation per company per manufactured product type.

Add your attestation to the publicly searchable list of attestations above.

List your company as self-attesting to BABA compliance on our Solar Manufacturing Map.