ES Foundry, a U.S.-owned solar cell producer announced it has secured its first GW+, multi-year contract with a top-tier solar module manufacturer.
The cell manufacturer started production this month at its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in South Carolina and the customer will receive its first shipment next month, Alex Zhu, founder & CEO of ES Foundry told pv magazine USA.
ES Foundry said the partnership is with a top-tier module manufacturer “renowned for its innovation and market leadership.”
“Our first customer is proof of the demand for high-efficiency, American-made solar cells that deliver both top-tier performance and unmatched value,” said Ken Johnston, VP of sales, ES Foundry. “With our premium-quality, domestically manufactured solar cells, customers can unlock the domestic content ITC, simplify compliance with IRS Safe Harbor guidance and secure a reliable supply chain solution.”
Image: ES Foundry
ES Foundry is currently making crystalline bifacial passivated emitter and rear contact (PERC) solar cells that it says qualify for the domestic content bonus. Initial capacity is 1 GW annually, ramping up to 3 GW by Q3 2025. Zhu said the company plans for TopCon and HJT in future expansion.
Zhu said there are currently 100 people employed at the plant, with plans to scale up to 500 by the end of the year. He said the company’s investors include international PE firms with no Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) investment.
The pursuit of onshoring the U.S. solar manufacturing supply chain has come with the challenge of imbalanced capacities of domestically made modules, cells, wafers and ingots. But according to the U.S. Solar Market Insight Q4 2024 report by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie, the tide may be turning.
Since passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, domestic solar module manufacturing has nearly quintupled, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association. In 2022 the U.S. was producing less than 7 GW, which has grown to over 40 GW today. At today’s full capacity, the U.S. can now produce enough solar modules to meet nearly all U.S. demand, the report said. Demand is expected to be 40.5 GWdc in 2024, followed by average annual volumes of at least 43 GWdc from 2025 to 2029.
Cell manufacturing, however, has been slower to take hold due to the complex and costly process. According to the report, the first U.S. cell manufacturing facility opened in Q3 2024, the first since 2019. While several manufacturers have announced plans to produce cells, current production is negligible, as shown in the SEIA chart below.
“Onshoring cell production is crucial for establishing a resilient solar supply chain,” said Elissa Pierce, a solar supply chain analyst for Wood Mackenzie. “The U.S. now has over 40 GW of module manufacturing capacity, but the vast majority of these modules are made with cells imported from Southeast Asia and other regions. A stable supply of U.S.-made cells can mitigate the impact of tariff increases and other potential supply chain disruptions on the market.”
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.