On February 4th, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) announced that the U.S. manufacturing industry has reached a historic milestone—domestic solar panel manufacturing capacity has exceeded 50 gigawatts (GW). If these factories operate at full capacity, they will be able to meet all domestic demand for solar products.
According to SEIA, this achievement marks a crucial step in establishing a domestic solar supply chain in the U.S., ending reliance on foreign companies and supporting domestic jobs.
SEIA’s supply chain data reveals that companies plan to add 56GW of solar cell, 24GW of wafer, and 13GW of silicon ingot manufacturing capacity in the U.S. Currently, manufacturing capacity for solar trackers has surpassed 80GW.
In 2020, SEIA set an ambitious goal of achieving 50GW of U.S. solar manufacturing capacity by 2030, encompassing all segments of the solar supply chain, including modules, cells, wafers, polysilicon, trackers, and inverters. At that time, the U.S. only had 7GW of solar module manufacturing capacity, 41 metric tons of polysilicon production capacity, and some manufacturing capabilities for inverters and mounts, with no domestic manufacturing capacity for other key upstream materials.
