Your Position: Home - Energy - The world’s largest solar panel manufacturer is coming to Ohio
Longi Solar and Invenergy are coming together to construct a 5 GW per year solar panel manufacturing facility in Pataskala, Ohio, via a newly founded company, Illuminate USA.
A press release from Illuminate said the acquisition and construction of the facility will cost $220 million. Invenergy notes they made a $600 million investment in the facility.
Invenergy is noted as being the facility’s ‘anchor’ customer. Longi is the world’s largest manufacturer of solar modules. Invenergy has an operating portfolio of 775 MW of solar facilities, and has 6 GW currently under development. Invenergy has developed approximately 10% of the United States’ wind and solar power fleet.
Illuminate says that the construction of the facility will generate 150 jobs. Once it is running, it will require 850 individuals to keep it going. Both single and bifacial solar modules will be manufactured at the site.
Invenergy’s involvement with solar panel manufacturing follows an emerging pattern in the U.S. market.
According to the Solar Energy Industries of America “Solar & Storage Supply Chain Dashboard,” the total U.S. solar module assembly fleet is above 58 GW. That figure includes proposed facilities, as well as facilities being constructed or expanded, and includes the capacity from Longi.
The recently signed Inflation Reduction Act offers solar panel manufacturers a collection of incentives for manufacturing solar hardware in the United States:
Solar cells – $0.04 per watt (DC) of capacity
Solar wafers – $12 per square meter
Solar grade polysilicon – $3 per kilogram
Polymeric backsheet- $0.40 per square meter
Solar modules – $0.07 per direct current watt of capacity
Data from BloombergNEF suggests that in the United States, solar module assembly costs roughly $84 million for each gigawatt of annual manufacturing capacity. The machines assembling modules cost approximately $23 million per gigawatt, and the remaining costs go towards facility construction.
pv magazine’s Vincent Shaw said the machines used in standard Chinese monoPERC manufacturing lines deployed in China cost approximately $8.7 million per gigawatt.
A 10 GW solar panel manufacturing facility built by Longi cost $349 million in 2022, excluding real estate costs.
In 2022, Longi announced a $6.7 billion solar campus that will manufacture 100 GW of solar wafers and 50 GW of solar cells per year
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Governments, businesses, and individual consumers are increasingly looking to alternative and sustainable forms of energy beyond fossil-based fuels as signs of climate change escalate.
While solar and other alternative energies tend to be more expensive or more difficult to produce upfront compared with fossil fuels, they have the primary benefit of leaving behind a significantly smaller environmental impact. Solar companies are experiencing a period of growth following incentives provided by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which allows taxpayers to subtract 30% of the cost of solar power from their taxes through 2032.
These are the 10 biggest solar companies by 12-month trailing (TTM) revenue. This list is usually limited to publicly traded companies in the U.S. or Canada, either directly or through ADRs. However, many companies in the solar industry are based and listed outside of those countries, so excluding them would incorrectly represent the industry.
Some foreign companies may report semiannually and may have longer lag times. All data are courtesy of YCharts and are current as of Dec. 22, 2022.
JinkoSolar is a Chinese holding company that produces solar cells, modules, and other materials related to solar energy through its subsidiaries. It is among the top producers of solar panels globally by gigawatts (GW) delivered. The company serves customers in 160 global countries.
JinkoSolar experienced growth in 2022, with quarterly module shipments doubling globally year-over-year and shipments to China increasing five-fold for the same period. Company leadership expects further growth through 2023, as it published a record-breaking solar energy conversion efficiency of 25.7% in its 182-millimeter solar cell.
Canadian Solar Inc. is a solar product developer that designs, builds, and sells modules with residential, commercial, and industrial applications. In addition to solar modules, the company's products include inverters and system kits.
The company is headquartered in Guelph, Canada, with several subsidiaries operating in the industry. Canadian Solar has customers in more than 160 countries and 20 manufacturing facilities in the Americas and Asia.
The company's 2022 third-quarter report attributed vertical integration of its manufacturing, more control over its supply chain, and an improved cost structure to its success throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and period of global economic turmoil.
The company anticipates continuing growth through 2023, mirroring that of the industry as demand for cleaner energy solutions continues to rise globally.
SolarEdge Technologies builds and distributes equipment and technology for photovoltaic arrays. In addition, the company provides optimization services as well as monitoring solutions for photovoltaic systems. SolarEdge's products include monitoring equipment, optimizers, and inverters.
The company is based in Herzliya, Israel, and has offices in the U.S., Brazil, Europe, UK, and Asia. SolarEdge claimed a record annual solar revenue of $2.92 billion in 2022 and anticipates continued growth after seeing its revenue increase by 63% from 2021.
First Solar provides solar panels, photovoltaic power plants, and related services such as the constructing, maintaining, and recycling of these products. The company utilizes a thin film semiconductor technology to achieve enhanced efficiency and sustainability in its solar modules.
First Solar expects to continue growing as it plans to scale global manufacturing and has secured deliveries into 2027.
Sunrun Inc. develops, manufactures, sells, installs, and maintains solar energy systems in 22 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. Its products range from rooftop panels and batteries for homes to large-scale energy projects.
Expecting solar industry growth to explode, Sunrun expanded to new locations throughout the U.S. in 2022. It was selected by Puerto Rico to rebuild its energy systems and to create a large-scale energy storage solution to address concerns over an increase in severe weather events and damages.
Enphase Energy builds and provides solar solutions for homes and businesses in more than 145 countries. Its unique product is a modularized smart technology that integrates an energy storage system that can charge electric vehicles, balance loads, and provide power that customers don't use to the grid.
Enphase expects to continue growing throughout 2023 as new products are released and as the projected available market size increases by more than $5 billion.
SunPower Corp. operates in the U.S., with a presence in all 50 states. The company designs residential solar solutions. SunPower grew revenue from $347 million in 2021 to $492 million in 2022.
The company expects to continue growing over 2023, partnering with General Motors to be the exclusive electrical vehicle charger installer for the company and forecasting a two-fold increase in market growth through 2025.
Array Technologies is another U.S.-based residential solar power equipment provider with a global footprint. Its key markets are North America, Australia, Latin America, Europe, Brazil, and South Africa. It differentiates itself from competitors with its patented energy-tracking technology that rotates panels to maximize collection, claiming a 25% energy gain relative to panels that don't tilt.
Array Technologies anticipates continued growth through 2023, citing two new products that provide more flexibility for varying site and weather conditions.
Maxeon Solar Technologies is headquartered in Singapore and has a presence in more than 100 markets globally. Maxeon has an established history in the solar power industry and claims to have built deep supply, sales, and installer channels worldwide that help it reduce costs to buyers.
Maxeon also supplies solar cells, modules, microinverters, and storage solutions to other solar companies, such as SunPower. In August 2020, Maxeon spun off from SunPower and achieved independent company status.
Sunnova Energy provides residential and commercial solar power solutions for more than 246,000 customers in the U.S. It is headquartered in Houston, Texas, and has over 980 sub-dealers and installers. The company experienced growth over 2022 even while accumulating a net loss of $147 million, which it attributes to higher general and administrative expenses and a change in the value of certain investments.
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