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Building out the largest solar module manufacturing plant in Dalton wasn’t enough to satisfy the ambitious goals in the U.S. market for Korean-owned solar giant Qcells.
Encouraged by incentives in the massive climate bill Congress passed last year, the company is spending $2.5 billion to put two new facilities in Georgia, a massive investment that would bring its total employment in the state to nearly 4,000. Panel capacity would grow fivefold to 8.4 gigawatts by 2024, up from just 1.7 today.
The new investment comes on top of the $170 million the company said it would spend in May, a move that will result in a second 1.4 gigawatt facility in Dalton, where its first plant opened in 2019.
That expansion is set to begin production in the first half of 2023 and will boost the company’s Georgia headcount from 750 to 1,285 across both facilities.
Qcells said Wednesday that it plans to add 2,500 more jobs to build out what it calls an entire “clean-energy supply chain” in Georgia, squaring with objectives announced by its parent company, Hanhwa Solutions.
One problem with renewables is that they produce only intermittently, when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. The fix is energy storage, batteries (and other solutions) that can soak up energy when it’s made to be deployed at a later time. Hanwha is investing heavily in the business known as ESS (energy-storage solutions), as is Freyr, the Norwegian company that is building a $2.4 billion plant in Newnan.
For Qcells, the focus is on the solar supply chain. Not only does it want to make the panels, but also the ingots, wafers and cells that go into them. These are the very components incentivized by the Solar Energy Manufacturing for America Act, written by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff in consultation with Qcells.
That bill was rolled into the Inflation Reduction Act passed last August, which included $10 billion for investment in domestic solar production, emphasizing the need to bring back the entire “value chain” to offset China’s stranglehold on an industry Mr. Ossoff and others deem critical for national security.
“Chinese industrial domination of the solar supply chain has become untenable,” Mr. Ossoff told Global Atlanta in an October interview, noting that his bill was designed “to support the development of domestic production at every phase of the solar supply chain,” even down to the polysilicon raw material itself.
Hanwha, the Qcells parent company, recently upped its stake to $204 million (21.34 percent) to become the largest shareholder in REC Silicon, a Norway-founded producer of polysilicon and solar panels. REC has two polysilicon plants in the U.S., one each in Washington and Montana. Relying on hydropower, these facilities avoid the heavy greenhouse gas emissions baked into some polysilicon sourced in other locales.
Another Historic Investment in Cartersville
The $2.5 billion that Qcells plans to spend in Georgia on the back of this legislation is being heralded as the largest-ever investment in clean energy in the United States.
The investment comprises two parts: By 2024, Qcells build a greenfield facility in Cartersville to make these components, as well as more modules totaling 3.3 gigawatts in output annually.
That will accompany a third facility Dalton that will add another 2 gigawatts, bringing the total output there to 5.1 gigawatts.
Combining these outputs is how Qcells will reach the 8.4 GW figure.
“As demand for clean energy continues to grow nationally, we’re ready to put thousands of people to work creating fully American Made and sustainable solar solutions, from raw material to finished panels,” said Justin Lee, CEO of Qcells. “We are committed to working with our customers as well as national and Georgia state leaders to bring completely clean energy to millions of people across the country.”
Cartersville-Bartow County also happens to be the community where Korean giants SK On and Hyundai Motor Group plan to put a joint-venture battery plant to the tune of at least $4 billion.
Qcells has been the top domestic residential solar producer by market share for five years starting in 2018, and it has led the commercial sector since 2019. The company is based in Seoul and operates its innovation hub in Thalheim, Germany, with manufacturing plants in the U.S., China, Malaysia and South Korea.
Learn more about the Qcells investment here.
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