U.S. government to lend $1.45 billion to help South Korean company build solar power plant in Georgia

ATLANTA — The federal government is making its first loan to a crystalline silicon solar plant, lending $1.45 billion to support a South Korean company's attempt to build key parts of the U.S. solar supply chain.

The U.S. Energy Department loan, announced Thursday, will be critical to financing a $2.2 billion complex that Qcells, a subsidiary of South Korea's Hanwha Group, is building. The company plans to process polysilicon refined in Washington state into ingots, wafers and solar cells, the building blocks of finished solar modules, in Cartersville, Georgia, northwest of Atlanta.

President Joe Biden's inflation-reduction bill, in addition to providing an additional tax credit on U.S.-made solar equipment, gives manufacturers incentives for every unit of polysilicon they refine and for every wafer, cell and module they make.

“This loan is special because it’s one of the first facilities where they’re not just making modules, but they’re also making cells and wafers,” Jigar Shah, the Energy Department’s director of loan programs, said in a telephone interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. “So we’re bringing more of the supply chain into the United States.”

Qcells began assembling modules in April at a portion of the complex that will have capacity for 3.3 gigawatts of solar panels per year. The Cartersville plant currently has about 750 employees and is expected to have 2,000 when completed. Qcells says it is on track to complete the wafer and cell portions of the plant by December.

The company also has a $630 million plant in Dalton, further northwest in Georgia, with a capacity of 5.1 gigawatts per year. The 1,800-employee plant was built without government loans. The company imports cells for the Dalton plant.

The Cartersville plant will be the largest ingot and wafer plant built in the United States, the Energy Department said. Between the Dalton and Cartersville plants, Qcells will produce enough solar panels to power nearly 1.3 million homes a year, reducing carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation.

Microsoft Corp. has agreed to buy a significant share of the Cartersville plant's output over an eight-year period.

Qcells must meet certain conditions to get the loan, and Marta Stoepker, a spokeswoman for the company, said Qcells is confident it will meet the requirements.

“The loan that we're getting is going to be extremely important in keeping us on track to meet our goal of really moving the supply chain offshore and manufacturing in America,” Stoepker said.

Still, the company said the Biden administration must remain committed to supporting domestic solar panel production in the face of a continued surge in cheap imports from Asia, which has driven down solar panel prices. Qcells and other manufacturers are pushing for the tariffs to protect against what they see as below-cost dumping by companies in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam that have ties to China. Stoepker said the Biden administration could also help by refining guidelines on the tax credit bonus for U.S.-made solar components.

Shah defended the administration's efforts, saying the industry supports “provide a lot of stability for people to invest.”

He said the United States is on track to have a reliable domestic supply chain that can meet most of its solar panel needs.

Domestic demand for solar modules in 2026 is expected to be around 50 gigawatts. We expect to produce around 40 gigawatts in 2026,” Shah said. “That means 80% of the modules we deploy in the U.S. in 2026 are expected to be domestic.

U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat who has been a leading advocate for the Biden administration's support for clean energy projects in the state, said the loan would continue to grow our economy and strengthen American energy independence.

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