Suniva is putting a big bet on U.S.-made solar cells. The company plans a $350 million plant in Laurens County, South Carolina, a 620,000-square-foot facility built to turn out advanced solar cells for domestic module makers. It’s part of a broader push to rebuild a cell-manufacturing base that largely left the country a decade ago.
Project Scope
The plant is sized to produce high-efficiency crystalline silicon cells, the wafer-based building blocks that get assembled into panels. The project is expected to create roughly 564 jobs. Solar cells are the harder, more capital-intensive step in the supply chain, and the one the U.S. has leaned on imports to fill; a plant at this scale is meant to feed module assembly lines that have multiplied domestically but still buy most of their cells abroad.
Why It Matters
Module assembly came back to the U.S. fast. Cells did not. That gap is exactly what a Laurens County plant targets, and it matters because a panel stamped “made in America” often still starts with an imported cell. Trade policy and domestic-content incentives have tilted the math toward building here, and South Carolina’s low power costs and manufacturing workforce make it a logical landing spot. Whether the economics hold depends on tariff durability and demand, but the strategic logic, closing the cell gap, is clear.
Project Team & Details
| Developer | Suniva |
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| Owner / Client | Suniva |
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| Status | Planned |
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| Funding Source | Private |
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