Bartow County News, QCells

The Korean company helping lead a U.S. solar manufacturing renaissance from Georgia is set to receive a $1.45 billion federal loan to support its new factory in Cartersville.

Hanwha Qcells has built panels in Georgia since 2019, starting with a facility in Dalton that has been expanded three times, making the company the largest manufacturer of modules in North America.

In January 2023, Qcells said it would invest $2.2 billion in a Cartersville plant that would also assemble panels, a process which began in April.

But the main objective of this new facility, located nearly 50 miles northwest of Atlanta, is to produce ingots, wafers and cells, upstream elements that module makers now have to source from abroad. Hanwha, Qcells’ parent company, is now the largest stakeholder in REC, a Norwegian firm that has revived a polysilicon factory in Washington.

Bringing these components home from Asia was one goal of the solar incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides tax breaks for each element along with finished panels. Written by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) as part of a separate bill, the incentives were later incorporated into the sweeping climate law exactly two years ago.

Qcells, which is in the process of closing its factories in China, has credited the IRA with fostering the operational certainty necessary to invest so heavily in U.S. production.

Lately, however, the company says risks have risen as a flood of Chinese-made panels into the U.S. has led to stockpiling of inventories and plummeting panel prices.

The Biden administration in May doubled the tariff rate on Chinese-made solar panels from 25 to 50 percent and recommitted to ending a reprieve on panels made in Southeast Asia by Chinese companies in June of this year as scheduled. The president also ended the so-called “bifacial exclusion” that kept the dual-sided panels mostly used in utility-scale installations from being hit with the elevated tariffs.

Qcells welcomed those moves but said in a news release that it’s “clear the industry will need continued support to see a level playing field.”

“Overcapacity” has become a Biden administration buzzword when it comes to dealing with China, especially relating to the trade in clean-energy technologies.

In April, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited Suniva, another Georgia-based solar cell producer that executives said would be revived by the IRA, just before taking a trip to China aimed at persuading the government to curb the dumping of finished electric vehicles and other manufactured goods on global markets. In May, Mr. Biden hit Chinese electric vehicles with a 100 percent tariff, up from 25 percent, in response to dumping concerns.

The Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Officeannounced Aug. 8 that it would backstop a $1.45 billion loan to Qcells from the Federal Financing Bank, which is part of the U.S. Treasury.

The guarantee is conditional on Qcells meeting certain legal, environmental and financial stipulations. Companies receiving the loan guarantees also have to create a Community Benefits Plan. The DOE says Qcells plan includes “strong community and labor engagement; quality jobs; diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA); and commitments in support of President Biden and Vice President Harris’s Justice40 Initiative.”

Loan Program Office Director Jigar Shah told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Qcells’ contracts with off-takers like Microsoft gave his office confidence in underwriting the loan.

In May, Qcells published the results of a Cartersville-Bartow County Department of Economic Development impact study that estimated the company’s expanded presence in Georgia would lead to 2,000 new direct jobs in Dalton and Whitfield counties, with the number climbing to 6,755 when including “indirect” jobs created by suppliers to the plants and “induced” employment spurred by employees’ spending at local businesses.

The report pegged the potential sales output of the combined complexes at more than $2 billion and noted that 1,200 jobs would be created during construction.

Between the two plants — 5.1GW in Dalton 3.3GW in Cartersville — Qcells will produce enough panels to power 1.3 million homes.

According to the DOE’s loan program office, the company is planning to invest in apprenticeships and job-training programs at the site, which the federal government says is located near disadvantaged areas.