Solar company plans Ga. plant
Korean firm will spend $2.5b on a new complex
The climate and tax bill President Biden signed in August to increase the use of green energy and electric cars while expanding domestic manufacturing appears to be yielding some results.
A Korean solar company, Hanwha Qcells, announced Wednesday that it would spend $2.5 billion to build a large manufacturing complex in Georgia. The plant will produce critical components for solar panels and build complete panels. If realized, the company’s plans could bring some of the supply chain for solar energy, which is largely based in China, to the United States.
Qcells, which has its headquarters in Seoul, said it was making the investment to take advantage of tax credits and other benefits in the Inflation Reduction Act, the law Biden signed last summer. The manufacturing facility is expected to create 2,500 jobs in Cartersville, Ga., roughly 50 miles northwest of Atlanta. Production is expected to start in 2024.
The company opened its first solar panel manufacturing plant in Georgia in 2019, quickly becoming one of the largest US producers — by the end of last year, it was cranking out 12,000 panels a day. The company said its new facility would increase its capacity to 60,000 panels a day.
“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,” Justin Lee, chief executive of Qcells, said in a statement.
Senator Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, and the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, have aggressively courted renewable energy, battery, and automotive companies to the state. Several of those investments have come from South Korea, including a planned electric vehicle plant by Hyundai.
“With a focus on innovation and technology, Georgia continues to set itself apart as the No. 1 state for business,” Kemp said in a statement.
In 2021, Ossoff introduced a bill, the Solar Energy Manufacturing for America Act, that would have provided tax incentives to solar manufacturers. The bill was later incorporated into the Inflation Reduction Act.
Under the legislation, businesses receive a tax credit at every stage of the supply chain. The act includes an estimated $30 billion in production tax credits to accelerate manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and for the processing of critical minerals. The law also offers an investment tax credit to companies that build factories that produce electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels.
Those and other provisions are intended to reduce reliance on China, which dominates the supply chain for crucial raw materials and components for batteries and solar panels. In addition to the fear that the United States was losing ground in important technologies, lawmakers have also been concerned that some Chinese producers are using forced labor.
“I wrote and passed into law legislation precisely intended to attract this type of manufacturing,” Ossoff said in an interview. “It’s the largest solar manufacturing in US history coming to Georgia. This economic and geostrategic competition will continue but my law has brought the United States back into the fight to secure our energy independence.”
Lawmakers and administrations from both parties have long sought to boost a domestic solar manufacturing industry, including by imposing tariffs and other restrictions on imported solar panels.