Qcells Solar Factory in Georgia Gets $1.45 Billion Loan Guarantee – CleanTechnica

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The Qcells facility will enable deployment of PV energy systems and domestic capability for critical parts of the solar supply chain.

As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America agenda, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) announced today the closing of a $1.45 billion loan guarantee to Hanwha Q Cells Georgia, Inc. (Qcells), a leading North American crystalline silicon solar manufacturer. The loan guarantee will support Qcells’ solar supply chain facility in Cartersville, Georgia, which will produce ingots, wafers, cells, and finished solar panels. The facility will be the largest ingot and wafer plant ever built in the United States and will reestablish critical parts of the domestic solar supply chain. The factory will also be the first fully integrated silicon-based solar manufacturing facility constructed in the United States in over a decade, helping address gaps in the domestic solar manufacturing supply chain.

In support of the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to deliver good-paying, high-quality job opportunities to communities across the country, this project is expected to create approximately 1,200 construction jobs and will support, upon completion, approximately 1,650 full-time operations jobs in Cartersville, GA. According to a recent economic review provided by the Cartersville-Bartow County Department of Economic Development, this investment will indirectly create nearly 6,800 jobs in Georgia’s Bartow and Whitfield Counties and has a potential sales output of more than $2 billion — boosting the regional economy and adding to the nearly 16 million jobs created since President Biden and Vice President Harris took office.

Once fully operational, the facility is expected to produce 3.3 GW of solar panels per year, enough to supply panels to half a million American households. As a result, the project will reduce emissions from power generation by more than 5 million tons of CO2e per year.

Hanwha Qcells USA, Inc previously opened another solar factory in 2019 in Dalton, GA, one hour north of the Cartersville facility. The experience gained from operating the Dalton facility, which was recently expanded to produce a total of 5.1 gigawatts (GW) of solar panels per year, will benefit this new project.

The Cartersville plant will be the first vertically integrated factory in the United States to produce ingots, wafers, cells, and panels in over a decade — strengthening domestic supply chains while helping create new economic opportunities for the local and surrounding communities. Qcells will make larger-format wafer sizes that lower costs and increase product performance.

The project will also help build the U.S. solar industry while reshoring production capacity for solar components that are largely produced in China and Southeast Asia, boosting domestic supply chain resilience, and helping lower costs for customers and communities across the United States. As with many of its projects, LPO’s project with Qcells aims to onshore and reshore supply chains, reducing dependence on China and furthering U.S. leadership in the global clean energy transition.

Projects like the one announced today could benefit from the Section 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit created by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which incentivizes manufacturing at each step of the solar supply chain. Further, the solar panels produced at the Cartersville plant will help solar developers qualify for the IRA’s domestic content bonus for the clean electricity production and investment tax credits. This domestic content bonus incentivizes solar developers to buy U.S.-made manufactured products and components. Since the IRA’s passage, over 335 GW of manufacturing capacity has been announced across the solar supply chain, representing more than 33,000 potential jobs and nearly $17 billion in announced investments across 118 new facilities or expansions—underscoring how the Investing in America agenda is growing America’s clean energy economy and catalyzing historic levels of private sector investments across the nation.

The solar panels produced by the Cartersville factory will be used for distributed and utility-scale projects. Hanwha Qcells USA is also one of the ten largest utility-scale project developers for both solar and storage in the United States, with over 2 GW of projects developed or constructed and a project development pipeline of 10+ GW. Qcells has entered into an 8-year, 12 GW solar and engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) agreement with Microsoft to be fulfilled with solar panels made in Cartersville.

The loan guarantee is offered through LPO’s Title 17 Clean Energy Financing Program, which includes financing opportunities for innovative energy and supply chain projects and projects that reinvest in existing energy infrastructure.

LPO borrowers are required to develop and ultimately implement a comprehensive Community Benefits Plan (CBP). CBPs ensure borrowers meaningfully engage with community and labor stakeholders to create good-paying jobs and improve the well-being of residents and workers. Qcells Georgia’s CBP outlines strong community and labor engagement; quality jobs; inclusion; and accessibility.

The project supported by today’s announcement is located near disadvantaged communities with low-income populations and housing, transportation, and health burdens, according to the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool. cells’ new manufacturing plant will benefit residents of Cartersville (located about 43 miles from Atlanta) and other nearby communities. Approximately 40 to 50 percent of the construction work has been awarded to local contractors, including contractors from Atlanta, Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee. The construction contractor is also partnering with Kennesaw State University in Georgia to hire recent construction management graduates. Qcells Georgia plans to offer job training and apprenticeships to local Cartersville residents who face barriers to employment.

Across all LPO’s programs, DOE has attracted 210 applications for projects across the country totaling over $324.3 billion in requested loans and loan guarantees, as of November 2024. For more information about QCells, read the conditional commitment blog post and visit LPO’s portfolio project page.