Glass, steel and backsheets: the supporting artists in the IRA’s manufacturing expansion

However, there has been a parallel, but less heralded, expansion in other parts of the supply chain as well. We have seen module companies work with suppliers to expand domestic manufacturing of key components including solar glass, frames, backsheets and encapsulants. For example, Canadian manufacturer Heliene has worked with its suppliers to create glass and frame operations to supply its module production.

CdTe module producer First Solar’s rapidly expanding production capacity and close relationships with its suppliers have led to expansions in domestic solar glass and steel production, as well as expanded domestic production of the tellurium that helps to power its modules. As part of this, its suppliers have modernised and restarted shuttered glass production facilities to meet their needs.

Swiss-owned module and cell producer Meyer Burger is working with domestic frame and junction box producers, as well as producing its own cells domestically, and Korean-owned manufacturer Hanwha Qcells’ sister company is building domestic EVA and backsheet production capacity to serve Qcells’ expanding module production.

The PV end-of-life management company SolarCycle is building a new plant to produce solar glass from recycled solar glass, a first. Endurans Solar is producing backsheet and encapsulants, and the company is planning a major expansion. Dow produces raw materials domestically for encapsulant films and silicone products for frame sealing and junction boxes.

Upstream impacts

The effects of the demand signal created by growing domestic PV manufacturing are being felt further upstream as well. Some 50 inverter manufacturers, including Enphase, Seimens and ETC, produce inverters in 20 states across the US, and many are expanding production.

Similarly, there have been significant investments in steel-based solar equipment in the US. Origami solar has created a supply chain of low carbon electric arc furnace steel and roll formers to produce its lightweight, low carbon footprint steel solar panel frames. More than 20 companies, such as Nextracker, OMCO, Terrasmart, Array Technologies, Solar Edge and GameChange, have established or expanded domestic production capacity for solar racking, trackers and associated hardware, partnering with US steel producers and machine shops. Like Origami, Nextracker is particularly focused on producing products with a reduced carbon footprint.

Mississippi Silicon has opened the first new US facility to produce metallurgical grade silicon (MGS), the raw material for polysilicon, in 40 years. They join FerroGlobe in making MGS domestically.

And as the US solar manufacturing ecosystem develops and matures we are seeing expanded investment in research and development (R&D) and innovation in the US, symbolised by First Solar opening the western hemisphere’s largest solar R&D facilities in Ohio. They, and other companies large and small, such as Qcells and CubicPV, are advancing research on perovskite tandem cells, a technology to markedly improve the efficiency of solar energy generation. Ongoing innovation is an important element of solar energy’s contribution to meeting global carbon reduction goals, and perovskites hold significant promise.

Rapid domestic development

This rapid development of a domestic PV ecosystem has obvious benefits. It creates a substantial number of manufacturing jobs, each of which supports approximately four additional jobs, with suppliers, contractors and local community businesses that serve the manufacturing operations and their workers. The PV sector has already created or supported roughly a million jobs in total and it is growing rapidly. 

A domestic PV production industry also increases the overall resilience of the global solar supply chain, creating manufacturing capacity that reduces supply risks associated with logistics disruptions, impoundments under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) and trade policy enforcement. This reduces risks to solar deployment.

Solar manufacturing in the US also has a distinctly lower carbon footprint than solar manufacturing in Asia, such that shifting from solar panels rooted in the Chinese supply chain to panels rooted in a domestic supply chain significantly reduces carbon emissions.

Further, expanded domestic manufacturing allows more projects to benefit from the IRA’s domestic content bonus adder credits. And for companies that want to purchase sustainably-manufactured low-carbon footprint PV panels bearing the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) ecolabel, assessed by the Global Electronics Council (GEC), increased domestic manufacturing expands that opportunity. Producing solar products in the relatively low-carbon US grid makes meeting the EPEAT requirements easier.

Traditionally, one of China’s competitive advantages in solar has been its well-developed manufacturing ecosystem of producers, suppliers, universities and institutes related to PV innovation and production. Importantly, the US is now developing a similar environment, which, in turn, is improving supply chain resilience, speeding innovation and helping to improve manufacturing cost efficiencies. All of this helps to ensure that the US has enough solar panels to meet its electrification and carbon reduction goals as it reduces the carbon footprint of solar manufacturing itself.

Michael Parr is the executive director of the Ultra Low Carbon Solar Alliance, a coalition of solar manufacturing companies using market forces to decarbonise the solar supply chain.