CARTERSVILLE — When Qcells announced its second North Georgia solar panel manufacturing operation in 2023, U.S.-based solar cell and wafer manufacturing was virtually non-existent.
As of this week, the company’s panels will include solar cells made on site, making South Korea-based Qcells the only company in the U.S. to produce those panels and all their components in house.
“This is the first facility that has ever done all these things at this level — ingots (which are huge cylinders), wafers, cells and modules,” said Scott Moskowitz, the company’s vice president of market strategy and public affairs.
Qcells aims to fully ramp up production by the end of September. At that point, it will be able to crank out roughly 3.5 gigawatts worth of solar panels, exceeding its target of 3.3 GW, the company said.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
That is twice the electricity produced by the Hoover Dam and enough to power “a couple million” households a year, Moskowitz told a small group of reporters who toured parts of the manufacturing facility and saw the solar cells being made for the first time on Monday.
It also will make the Cartersville factory the largest ingot and wafer manufacturing operation in the United States.
The timing is critical. Electricity demand is at historic highs as power-intensive data centers are being built to support artificial intelligence, and hyperscalers such as Meta and Microsoft are driving renewable energy contracts to meet their clean energy goals.
What’s more, electricity bills have become a key political issue as consumers continue to feel squeezed by rising prices at the gas pump and in the grocery store, and as backlash against data centers continues to rise.
The metro Atlanta area remains one of the hottest areas for data center development, and Georgia Power, the state’s largest electricity company, is turning mostly to fossil fuels to produce the electricity needed to support them.
Qcells sees opportunity amid the data center and energy affordability debate. The company’s optimism comes from operating in a state that prides itself on manufacturing, and solar energy is the fastest-growing and cheapest form of new electricity, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
“There’s a lot of demand for the products that will come out of this factory,” Moskowitz said.
Currently, Qcells’ Cartersville facility makes 17,000 solar panels a day. The three manufacturing lines in its module production room are a key reason why.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
The fully automated factory includes robots — some similar to the food-delivery robots that chug around Midtown Atlanta — to do all the heavy lifting. The deep-blue, reflective modules move through steps with precision, with one stop lasting only 19 seconds before the component goes to another machine.
Freddy Torres, a module production shift manager, ticks off the numbers: 500 panels an hour, 5,000 a day per line.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
“We have broken some records and made more than that,” he said.
The panels are inspected after each step. This is because they can’t be fixed after they are laminated, which is the final stage of the process.
“We have to stand by a 25-year warranty,” he said.
Qcells announced a massive $2.5 billion expansion in early 2023. This included building out its first factory in Dalton by 2.1 GW and starting on the Cartersville factory.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Both are expected to employ roughly 3,800 workers in the form of direct jobs across Bartow and Whitfield counties.
Moskowitz said the company decided to build its second factory after receiving widespread federal and state political support — some of which came in the form of economic incentives that carried over to the Trump administration.
“It’s telling that we built our second factory here,” Moskowitz said.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Qcells is coming back from a monthslong pause in production because of trade law issues, which led it to temporarily furlough workers at its Cartersville and Dalton operations last November. The company resumed normal production in March after officials said it resolved supply chain issues tied to a 2021 federal law designed to crack down on forced labor in China.
Having all the panel components made in the U.S. eases customer concerns over supply chain, tariff and trade uncertainty, according to Moskowitz. It also lets Qcells take advantage of federal manufacturing production tax credits for each component and lets its customers secure domestic content bonuses under an investment tax credit.
“Energy affordability and data centers have become kitchen table political issues … in a way that it has not been in the past,” Moskowitz said. “Our industry has largely been trying to ensure that people understand that we are a solution that can help bridge that gap.”
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