More Solar Panels To Be Made In USA, Finally (No, Really!)
Between economic downturns, political interference, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a supply chain that depends heavily on imported solar panels and components, US solar developers have faced their share of slings and arrows. Now it looks like better times are ahead. The US firm First Solar has just announced a $1.2 billion plan to make American solar panels great again, including a massive new factory alongside an expansion of its existing operations.
First Solar was one of the solar startups scouted by the Energy Department in the 1990s. The agency was impressed by First Solar’s use of cadmium telluride, a stable compound that offers the potential for solar panels to beat the cost of producing electricity from fossil sources.between the Energy Department and First Solar, dating back to 2003.
About $185 million will also go to upgrade the capacity of First Solar’s operations in Ohio, adding another 0.9 gigawatts among the three existing factories to bring them up to about 7 gigawatts collectively. All together, the company expects to have more than 10 gigawatts in capacity online by 2025.
“We continue to evaluate further investments in incremental capacity and could announce further expansion plans in the future,” he also noted, though he cautioned that “any such decision would be developed on a solid foundation of strong demand” among other factors.That thing about “strong demand” sure sounds like Widmar was dropping a careful hint about the importance of building on the Inflation Reduction Act with more policies that support the growth of the US solar industry.
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