Hanwha to Build Second U.S. Module Factory

By Christian Roselund

The At the Smarter E Event in Munich, PV maker Hanwha Q Cells announced that it plans to build a 1.4-gigawatt factory to produce PV modules at an undisclosed location in the United States. The factory will represent a US$155 million investment, as part of $294 million that the company plans to spend on capacity expansions and an upgrade to high-efficiency TopCon technology.

This will be Hanwha’s second factory in the United States, following its 1.8-gigawatt factory in the U.S. state of Georgia. The Georgia factory is the largest crystalline silicon module plant in the United States. The United States currently has 7 gigawatts of active PV module manufacturing capacity; the addition of this plant and First Solar’s pending 3.3-gigawatt factory would bring the nation’s module capacity to 11.7 gigawatts. This is still far short of the 23.6 gigawatts of demand that the market saw

in 2021 and the United States remains an import-dependent market, even for modules.

Hanwha’s PV modules have been in high demand in the United States, as they can incorporate cells from the company’s Korean production that are not subject to potential duties under the anti-circumvention investigation against products from Southeast Asia. Others also have expressed interest in capitalizing on this, and various manufacturers have announced plans to build 13.4 gigawatts of module factories in the United States in recent months. However, unlike Hanwha’s and First Solar’s module factories these have consistently been contingent on the passing of the Solar Energy Manufacturing for America (SEMA) or similar incentives. Hanwha has told CEA that if SEMA is passed, it will also build U.S. ingot and wafer manufacturing as well.

The modules produced by Hanwha’s new U.S. factory will use Hanwha TopCon cells from a new factory that it plans to build in Korea. TopCon is a high-efficiency manufacturing process that CEA sees as one of the two main near-term future technology pathways for PV makers. The other is heterojunction, however, while heterojunction requires new cell lines TopCon can be accomplished with upgrades to existing cell lines.

Read more:

News coverage: Hanwha Solutions discloses new investment to produce high-performance solar cells (AJU Business Daily)

News coverage: U.S. deal to shake up solar industry (E&E News)