First Solar opens 1.7 GW module plant in South Carolina

First Solar inaugurated the first phase of its module plant in Gaffney, South Carolina, at the end of October 2026, with 1.7 GW of capacity, according to pv magazine Latam. The facility is the company's sixth manufacturing plant in the United States and produces Series 6 Plus thin-film modules.

The plant joins three facilities in Ohio and those in Alabama and Louisiana, and moves the final stages of module production onto U.S. soil, while the cells are manufactured in Malaysia and Vietnam, PV Tech reported. For solar project developers in Mexico and Latin America, U.S. manufacturing capacity affects the availability and delivery times of thin-film modules, an input that competes with crystalline silicon of Asian origin. First Solar attributed the investment to rising domestic demand for equipment manufactured in the United States following federal trade policies and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, enacted in July 2025.

The second phase, with an investment of 330 million dollars, will be completed in mid-2027 and will raise the plant's capacity from 1.7 GW to 3.4 GW, using the company's CuRe technology. First Solar reported that it has already filled 500 jobs and expects close to 700 employees at full capacity. "Less than a year after we selected Gaffney, this facility is ready to produce American solar technology, built by South Carolina workers," said chief executive Mark Widmar in a statement. The company expects its cumulative investment in U.S. manufacturing and research and development to exceed 5,000 million dollars by the end of 2026, and estimates global module production of between 16.5 and 17.5 GW in 2026, rising to a range of 18.9 to 20.5 GW in 2027.

The progress of the second phase and actual module production are the data points to watch. The company projects raising its U.S. manufacturing capacity to close to 17 GW by 2027, a level that will define the supply available for projects in the region.

This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.