US cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film manufacturer First Solar has inaugurated a 3.5GW facility in Alabama, US.
Located in Lawrence County, the facility represents a US$1.1 billion investment and will produce the company’s Series 7 modules. The facility in Alabama is the company’s fourth to begin operations in the country, with plans to expand in the south-east unveiled back in August 2022.
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With this latest facility launch, First Solar increased its US domestic manufacturing capacity—which includes the Alabama facility plus three operational facilities in Ohio—to nearly 11GW, while its annual nameplate global capacity will exceed 21GW, once work at the Alabama facility is fully ramped up. Earlier this year, the company opened a 3.3GW thin-film manufacturing plant in India; located in Tamil Nadu, that facility produces First Solar’s Series 7 CdTe modules.
“This is the first of two fully vertically integrated solar manufacturing facilities that solidify the role of the Gulf Coast states in enabling America’s all-of-the-above energy strategy,” said Mark Widmar, First Solar CEO.
The other vertically integrated solar manufacturing facility Widmar refers to is the one being built in Louisiana. Similar to the Alabama plant, the Louisiana facility is also a US$1.1 billion investment, and will have a 3.5GW annual nameplate capacity. First Solar expects to commission this project in the second half of 2025.
By the end of 2026, the CdTe thin-film solar manufacturer aims to reach an annual nameplate capacity of 14GW in the US and 25GW globally.
In addition to increasing its manufacturing capacity with the Alabama and India facilities, this year First Solar also opened a research and development (R&D) facility in Ohio, its second in the US. The R&D centre will focus on developing the company’s CdTe thin-film solar cell and module technology, along with prototype tandem products.
Despite ongoing challenges from major Chinese silicon solar manufacturers, First Solar continues to increase its manufacturing capacity as the major thin-film module manufacturer. Last year, Finlay Colville, head of research at PV Tech, predicted that First Solar would be the only company to remain profitable in 2024, while in a more recent post, Colville wrote that First Solar would likely be the only company unaffected by the current tides until 2026.
