US government to lend $1.45 billion to help South Korean firm build solar plant in Georgia

ATLANTA – The federal government is providing its first loan to a crystalline silicon solar plant, providing a $1.45 billion loan to support a South Korean company’s efforts to establish key parts of the solar energy supply chain in the United States.

The U.S. Department of Energy loan, announced Thursday, will be key to financing the $2.2 billion complex being built by Qcells, a unit of South Korea’s Hanwha Group. The company plans to take polysilicon refined in Washington state and produce ingots, wafers and solar cells — the building blocks of finished solar modules — in Cartersville, Georgia, northwest of Atlanta.

President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, in addition to providing an additional tax credit for American-made solar equipment, allows manufacturers to receive incentives for every unit of refined polysilicon and for every wafer, cell and module produced.

“This loan is unique because it’s one of the first facilities where we’re not only making modules, but also cells and wafers,” Jigar Shah, director of Energy Department lending programs, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday. “So we’re moving a lot more of the supply chain to the United States.”

In April, Qcells began assembling modules on a portion of the complex that will have a capacity of 3.3 gigawatts of solar panels per year. The Cartersville facility currently employs about 750 workers and is expected to employ 2,000 when it is complete. Qcells says it is on track to complete the wafer and cell portion of the facility by December.

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

The Cartersville plant will be the largest ingot and wafer plant in the United States, the Energy Department said. At 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 energy generation.

Microsoft Corp. has entered into an agreement to purchase a significant portion of the Cartersville plant’s production over an eight-year period.

To receive the loan, Qcells must meet certain conditions. Company spokeswoman Marta Stoepker said Qcells is confident it will meet those requirements.

“The loan we are receiving will be critical to helping us stay on track with our goal of bringing our supply chain to America,” Stoepker said.

Still, the company said the Biden administration must remain committed to supporting domestic solar panel production amid a continued surge in cheap imports from Asia that have driven down solar panel prices. Qcells and other manufacturers are pushing for tariffs to protect themselves from what they call 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 for a tax premium for U.S. solar components.

Shah defended the administration’s efforts, saying support for the industry “gives people a lot of stability, which encourages them to invest.”

He added that the United States is well on its way to creating a reliable domestic supply chain that can meet most of the country’s demand for solar panels.

“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 United States in 2026 will 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 “will continue to grow our economy and strengthen America’s energy independence.”