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The fund will be used to develop the largest ingot and wafer production plant in the US.
Solar manufacturer Hanwha Qcells Georgia has secured a $1.45bn loan guarantee from the US Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) to fund a comprehensive solar supply chain facility in Cartersville, Georgia, US.
The fund will be used to establish the largest ingot and wafer production plant in the US – the first fully integrated silicon-based solar manufacturing facility in the country in more than ten years.
The Cartersville facility will play a crucial role in re-establishing vital components of the domestic solar supply chain.
The solar panels from Cartersville will be used in various projects with Qcells, a top utility-scale solar and storage project developer in the US.
An eight-year, 12GW solar and an engineering procurement and construction agreement with Microsoft will be fulfilled using panels from the new plant.
The loan guarantee is part of LPO’s Title 17 Clean Energy Financing programme, which supports innovative and supply chain energy projects.
The investment aligns with the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to creating quality job opportunities, with an estimated 1,200 construction jobs and 1,650 full-time operational roles anticipated in Cartersville.
The plant will produce 3.3GW of solar panels annually, enough to power half a million American homes. This output is projected to cut more than five million tons of CO2e emissions each year from power generation.
The experience gained from Qcells’ existing Dalton factory, which recently expanded to 5.1GW capacity, will add to the success of the new facility.
The facility also represents a move towards reshoring production capacity, currently dominated by China and Southeast Asia, to enhance US supply chain resilience and support domestic clean energy initiatives.
The project could benefit from the Section 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit, part of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which encourages manufacturing across the solar supply chain.
The IRA’s domestic content bonus also incentivises developers to use US-made products, a move that has already spurred significant investment and job creation in the sector.
DOE’s LPO has seen significant interest, with 210 applications for projects across the US, requesting over $324.3bn in loans and loan guarantees as of November 2024. |
