CubicPV receives $103 million commitment for U.S. wafer manufacturing

CubicPV announced that it has secured new firm equity commitments in excess of $100 million dollars in support of its U.S. factory plans and tandem solar product roadmap. 

The first $33 million will be released immediately. The second tranche investment is tied to specific project milestones. The capital was committed by shareholders, led by SCG Cleanergy (a wholly owned subsidiary of SCG) with contributions from Hunt Energy Enterprises and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a set of investment funds founded by Bill Gates.

“With its deep experience in silicon wafer production and ownership of highly innovative proprietary technologies, Cubic is ideally positioned to play a key role in the world’s embrace of solar powered electricity generation. We continued to be impressed with the strength of the team, their progress against plan and their commitment to manufacturing and innovation excellence,” said Tim McCaffery, global investment director, SCG.

Late last year, CubicPV announced plans to establish 10 GW of conventional mono wafer capacity in the United States. Driven by incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, the wafers produced by the new facility could fill a void in the domestic supply chain as well as create 1,500 new direct jobs.

CubicPV said it continues to make progress in its plan to build U.S. wafer manufacturing capacity, having completed its conceptual design and scoping for the project. The company narrowed its site selection decision to two final possible locations, and engaged with an industry-leading project management company. It also indicated that financing is on track, having received term sheets that indicate that it will exceed the required total equity for the new factory.

“Today’s announcement underscores the considerable progress we’ve made, the depth of our engineering competence and the strength of our technologies to deliver a more powerful solar future,” said Frank van Mierlo, chief executive officer of CubicPV. “We thank SCG Cleanergy for their confidence in our manufacturing goals and product roadmap.

Not only is CubicPV moving forward with its manufacturing plant, but the company announced the appointment of David Gustafson as president of the new wafer facility. In this role, Gustafson will head up the planning, design, ramp, and operation of Cubic’s factory. He brings extensive manufacturing leadership and engineering experience, most recently leading the manufacturing functions for 5,000 people, across seven states and eight U.S. factories for a Fortune 500 company. Gustafson received his Bachelor of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his Master of Science degree from Vanderbilt University. He also served in the United States Navy Civil Engineer Corps as Company Commander for Navy Mobile Construction Battalion 74.

CubicPV was formed in 2021 from the merger of Hunt Perovskite Technologies and 1366 Technologies, a company that was founded in 2008 and headquartered in Bedford, Mass. 1366 Technologies was known for its direct wafer technology, which forms wafers directly, using molten silicon, instead of silicon ingots sawn into wafers.

The process results in lower losses due to a kerfless wafer production that does not require silicon ingots to be sawn into wafers. This eliminates a time-consuming process that wastes material as silicon dust. Instead, 1366’s technology forms wafers directly, using molten silicon.

In addition to plans to produce wafers to fill a much-needed gap in the U.S. solar supply chain, the company said it will continue research and development of its tandem modules, which reportedly offers more than 30% greater efficiency than the highest efficiency conventional modules. The design stacks two solar cells, with silicon on the bottom, powered by CubicPV’s Direct Wafer technology, and perovskite on the top, the company claims that the tandem design “will dramatically increase the power of every acre of solar deployed.”