The US Department of Energy (FoE) has announced a conditional commitment to lend $1.45 billion to Qcells for a factory producing solar ingots, wafers, solar cells, and PV modules in the state of Georgia.
August 9, 2024 Ryan Kennedy
From pv magazine USA
The US DoE Loans Programs Office (LPO) has announced a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee of up to $1.45 billion to Qcells to support the expansion of its North American solar manufacturing operations.
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.
The company is developing a solar ingot, wafer, cell, and solar panel manufacturing facility, supplying each stage of the solar supply chain from raw polysilicon to end-user components. The facility, located in Cartersville, Georgia, will be the largest ingot and wafer plant in the United States, addressing critical early stages of the supply chain.
Once fully operational, the facility is expected to produce 3.3 GW of solar panels per year. This is roughly enough solar capacity to power half a million U.S. households, said the company. It is also equivalent to reducing emissions from power generation by more than 5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.
The project is expected to support 1,200 construction jobs and, upon completion, 1,950 full-time operations jobs. Approximately 40% to 50% of the construction work has been awarded to local contractors, including contractors from Atlanta, Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee. According to an economic review by the Cartersville-Bartow County Department of Economic Development, the investment will create nearly 6,800 jobs in Bartow and Whitfield Counties and has a potential sales output of more than $2 billion.
Panels produced at the site will be designed for both distributed and utility-scale applications. Qcells is also among the largest utility-scale project developers for both solar and storage in the United States with more than 2 GW of projects developed or constructed and a project development pipeline of more than 10 GW. The company has signed an eight-year, 12 GW solar and engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) agreement with Microsoft to be fulfilled with solar panels made in Cartersville.
Components produced by the project are expected to benefit from the 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit. Qcells’ products produced at the site are also expected to contribute to project eligibility for the domestic content 10% tax credit bonus.
“Over 325 GW of manufacturing capacity has been announced across the solar supply chain, representing more than 31,000 potential jobs and nearly $16 billion in announced investments across 111 new facilities or expansions,” said the DoE.
This conditional commitment signals the DoE’s intent to finance the project, but the government and company must meet specific technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions before the department finalizes financing documents and disburses the loan.
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Publish date : 2024-08-08 19:45:00
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