Canada-headquartered North American solar PV manufacturer Canadian Solar has officially inaugurated its TOPCon solar module manufacturing facility in Texas with a 5 GW annual production capacity.
In a LinkedIn post, Canadian Solar's Corporate Senior Vice President Thomas Koerner said this factory has created 1,500 US jobs.
Canadian Solar had picked Mesquite in Texas as the location of its 5 GW solar module assembly plant. It will be supported by a 5 GW solar cell production fab in Jeffersonville, Indiana that's scheduled to be commissioned by the end of 2025 (see Canadian Solar Announces Solar Cell Fab In The US).
In November 2023, it also announced plans to launch a 5 GW solar PV wafer production facility in Thailand to feed the 5 GW cell fab in the US (see Canadian Solar Expands Solar Manufacturing).
Canadian Solar's module fab in the US becomes operational at a time when the US government has launched an antidumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVD) investigation into solar cell and module imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam (see US ITC To Continue AD/CVD Investigations Into Solar Imports).
The US saw its solar module manufacturing capacity increase to exceed 27 GW at the end of Q1/2024, with the addition of 11 GW during the quarter, according to Wood Mackenzie and the SEIA (see US Exited Q1/2024 With 11.8 GW DC New PV Capacity).