Alpen Secures $18 Million in Financing
Secretary Granholm with Andrew Zech and Craig Maierhofer at Alpen HQ for the initial DOE grant announcement.
Today, we are thrilled to announce that Alpen has secured $18 million in funding to propel our award-winning window, door, and glass businesses to new heights. This significant financing is spearheaded by a $5.9 million grant from the Department of Energy (DOE), awarded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act (BIL/IRA). This vital DOE grant catalyzed an additional $12.1 million in private capital, positioning Alpen to expand and innovate at a crucial time when the demand for our cutting-edge products is surging.
The global urgency to enhance building efficiency, driven by the alarming rise in extreme weather events and climate change, underscores the critical role of high-performance windows. Historically, high costs have hindered widespread adoption of cutting edge window technology, but the investments in manufacturing automation and the recent launch of our AlpenGlass product line will revolutionize the market by making ultra-efficient windows more accessible and affordable than ever before.
The world is waking up to the critical importance of windows to decarbonizing buildings. We live every day in a world that is already impacted by extreme weather events brought on by climate change. There is a new sense of urgency amongst those who are paying attention to upgrade their windows both for sustainability reasons but also in a quest to build more resilient homes and businesses that can better withstand extreme weather.
“Alpen’s goal is to scale the advanced window market by manufacturing affordable, ultra-efficient windows and glass right here in the United States.” says our CEO Andrew Zech. “The funding is a great example of the power of public-private partnership. For the last five years, Alpen partnered with the DOE’s national lab system and the General Services Administration (GSA) to pioneer and test the use of ultra-thin-glass as a lightweight insulator in windows. Having proven the technology, the DOE grant and matching private capital will accelerate deployment in the market.”
In addition, Alpen’s ability to scale its thin-glass window technologies will help the company create hundreds of new jobs in American communities impacted by coal plant and coal mine closures. According to the White House, the BIL/IRA was established to address the “existential threat of the climate crisis and set forth a new era of American innovation and ingenuity to lower consumer costs and drive the global clean energy economy forward.”
What we Belive
“We believe Alpen can serve as a success story for that mission,” says Zech. “Our thin glass units help the entire industry. They form the core of our windows and doors, but we also make our thin glass units available to all window manufacturers – providing them with high performance, energy efficient thin glass without requiring any changes to their existing product designs. We want to keep America at the vanguard of advanced building science, and we want to make advanced windows affordable for all.”
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