Your Daily Dose of Climate Hope: January 21, 2025
A giant new solar factory in Georgia!
The Energy Department recently finalized a loan for a giant new U.S. solar factory in Cartersville, Georgia.
Tell Congress to sustain U.S. investment in domestic solar manufacturing!
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Reasons For Hope
In December 2024, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) finalized a $1.45 billion loan to QCells to build a fully integrated factory in Cartersville, Georgia that will produce solar ingots, wafers, cells, and panels — in other words, all the steps of the solar manufacturing process under one roof, on domestic soil, at the largest scale in American history.
QCells already runs a highly successful American solar factory in Dalton, Georgia (Canary Media has a great story about how it spurred a boom in the local community), and the new Cartersville factory will build on this experience. Once complete, the new factory will produce 3.3 GW of solar panels per year, enough to equip half a million U.S. households and reduce emissions by over 5 million tons of CO2-equivalent. Furthermore, a recent economic review calculated that it will create 6,800 jobs in the area. Spectacular work!
“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 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.”
— U.S. Energy Department
As with other major LPO cleantech loans, it’s up to Congress to determine whether vital funding like this will be sustained and built on during upcoming budget cycles. (It’s also up to Congress to decide the fate of the Inflation Reduction Act’s 45X clean manufacturing tax credit, which provides long-term support for projects like this). And in an uncertain political environment, enlisting vocal Congressional champions to defend specific clean energy projects is likely to be increasingly important. Your voice can help show that American voters care about sustaining strategic cleantech investments.
Tell Congress to sustain U.S. investment in domestic solar manufacturing!
Great action item (and as always, super easy to do)! With IRA benefits going 3:1 to red states, these wins in Georgia are exactly why defending the IRA needs to be a bipartisan project. Plus, who wouldn't want 5+ GW of clean green power roaring out of American factories?