Hoping for an American solar oasis
It’s not often a journalist focused on the U.S. solar market gets to travel internationally for the job. When ELITE Solar invited me to Egypt for its new solar cell and panel factory unveiling, it seemed like a must-take opportunity. The facility — which is featured on page 15 — is making solar panels bound for U.S. projects, and I was able to talk with U.S. developers about the difficulty in navigating supply chains and complying with federal trade requirements. The Middle East is becoming a solar panel manufacturing hotspot, because it’s not as targeted by tariffs and has quick construction timelines.
One major theme stood out for me as I toured ELITE Solar’s newest facility: Establishing solar manufacturing operations in America is expensive and a slog. ELITE Solar invested around $115 million into the combined cell and panel facility in Egypt, and it was constructed in less than 12 months. Qcells has been trying to build a cell and wafer factory in Georgia since 2023 and originally estimated spending $2.5 billion in the process.
On the two-hour drive from Cairo to ELITE’s complex, it was unsurprisingly a vast desert landscape until approaching the Suez Canal Economic Zone. Huge transformers were bringing in power to the industrial area, which was peppered by shells of new buildings. The Egyptian government has been courting clean energy manufacturers to build in the zone, and all the incentives are there to have companies quickly start. Manufacturers in the United States have to find sites that already have appropriate power supply or build their own facilities to meet their needs. On an aging and strained grid, it’s a tough task in America.
How can U.S. manufacturers compete with overseas operations?
I know none of this is new information to the U.S. solar industry. Everyone’s trying in their own way to change the story over here. But I also want to acknowledge that we recognize the obstacles American manufacturers face when establishing domestic supply chains. Yet many keep trying and, eventually, succeed. The achievement doesn’t go unnoticed.
I look forward to sticking closer to home and visiting more American solar manufacturing setups soon, celebrating the truly herculean effort it took to get there.
Kelly Pickerel, editor in chief