Suniva is planning a major expansion in US solar manufacturing, with a new 4.5-gigawatt (GW) solar cell factory coming to Laurens, South Carolina.
The company says the facility is expected to open in Q2 2027. Once it’s online, Suniva’s total US solar cell capacity will top 5.5 GW annually, including its existing factory in metro Atlanta. That would make it the largest merchant solar cell manufacturer in the US.
The new plant will be a 620,000-square-foot facility backed by more than $350 million in investment. It’s expected to create more than 550 jobs in advanced manufacturing and clean energy.
Suniva manufactures high-efficiency monocrystalline silicon solar cells. The company has been around since 2007, when it spun out of US Department of Energy-funded research at Georgia Tech. It filed for bankruptcy in 2017, but made a comeback in 2023.
The company is leaning hard into domestic manufacturing at a time when supply chains – especially for solar – remain heavily global.
CEO Tony Etnyre said, “Solar energy is the fastest and most economical way to grow our nation’s energy supply. Our expansion means that domestically produced renewable energy will do more than ever to secure America’s energy future.”
Suniva asserts it’s the only US-based merchant solar cell manufacturer that is both American-owned and American-operated, with its leadership, technology, workforce, and manufacturing all in the US.
President and COO Matt Card framed the move as part of a broader push for energy independence, saying the question of who controls energy supply chains is becoming more important, and that Suniva’s answer is to build domestically.
This isn’t module assembly – it’s solar cell manufacturing, which is a more critical (and historically more overseas-dominated) part of the supply chain.
If Suniva delivers on this timeline, it’ll meaningfully boost US cell capacity, which has been the biggest bottleneck.
And as electricity demand rises from AI data centers and electrification, adding more domestic solar supply is essential.
Read more: The US’s oldest solar factory filed for bankruptcy in 2017 – but now it’s back
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Michelle Lewis is a writer and editor on Electrek and an editor on DroneDJ, 9to5Mac, and 9to5Google. She lives in White River Junction, Vermont. She has previously worked for Fast Company, the Guardian, News Deeply, Time, and others. Message Michelle on Twitter or at michelle@9to5mac.com. Check out her personal blog.
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