Elon Musk said SpaceX and Tesla teams are working separately to build 100 GW a year of solar manufacturing capacity in the United States, a process that he expects will take about three years. pv magazine USA’s Ben Zientara assesses the likelihood of these plans coming to fruition.
Image: SpaceX
From the magazine
To anyone who knows about US solar manufacturing, Elon Musk’s claim that SpaceX and Tesla are working to build 100 GW of annual PV manufacturing capacity might seem unachievable.
As 2025 came to a close, experts from Intertek CEA estimated the total manufacturing capacity of solar module facilities in the United States to be slightly greater than 45 GW, moving to around 60 GW this year. The company’s Q4 2025 PV Supply, Technology, and Policy Report noted that its analysts expect an additional 16 GW to 20 GW of planned capacity to be constructed by early 2027.
The scale of Musk’s ambition, as outlined at Davos, is to build potentially two times more US module manufacturing capacity than currently exists, and cells as well, in just three years. Some might say that seems far-fetched, yet the domestic need for new power generation matches Musk’s estimates for what his companies can accomplish in the near term.
A 2025 study published by the American Clean Power Association estimated the United States would require more than 900 GW of new renewable generation capacity by 2040 to meet the increased energy demand from data centers and electrification of heating and transportation. Most new generation was expected to come from solar, with 647 GW forecast over a 15-year period.
Musk’s ambitions for manufacturing capacity growth are not without precedent on the world stage. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China had an annual module manufacturing capacity of 1,156 GW at the end of 2024 and produced 627 GW of modules. Data from the IEA also show China added an average of nearly 200 GW in new solar module manufacturing capacity per year between 2021 and 2024. The scale of rapid growth has been proven possible, but the question remains: Can Tesla (or anyone) build 100 GW of new manufacturing capacity in the United States in just three years?
To even begin such an undertaking would require a remarkable investment in equipment, real estate, power electronics and labor – including expert system integrators, programmers, machine operators and more. And that’s before considering the supply of raw materials and upstream components that would be required to triple the operating capacity of US solar manufacturing.
A few suppliers of solar manufacturing equipment operate in Europe, while the majority are now based in China. According to industry experts who spoke with pv magazine, working with European suppliers offers many advantages, including faster shipping (around five weeks from order to delivery) and better software integration packages. Once on site for integration, staff can get the lines running within four to six months. However, the European companies are reputed to charge around twice what many Chinese companies do, and they simply have no experience operating at the scale Tesla is seeking. For example, Italian company Ecoprogetti, a market leader in supplying PV module assembly lines, touts a track record of 38 GW of lines installed in its entire history.
Leading Chinese manufacturers of integrated module lines that sell to US companies include SC-Solar (Suzhou Shengcheng Solar Equipment), which advertises more than 800 GW of capacity installed worldwide, and Jinchen Machinery with more than 500 GW of projects built.
Chinese cell equipment providers include Suzhou Maxwell Technologies, widely billed as the world’s largest supplier of solar cell screen printing equipment. Laplace said in 2025 that it had shipped more than 470 GW of equipment worldwide. Shenzhen S.C New Energy Technology is also among the key suppliers.
According to industry experts, shipping from these Chinese suppliers can take longer – up to eight weeks after ordering. But once on site, the Chinese integration teams can get lines operational within three months.
Shortly after Musk’s announcement, a report from Reuters indicated Tesla was planning to purchase solar manufacturing equipment totaling $2.9 billion from Chinese suppliers.
The report mentioned Maxwell, S.C New Energy, and Laplace – all cell production tool providers – and indicated the equipment is slated for delivery by late 2026. The numbers quoted by Reuters are in line with expectations for cell manufacturing equipment costs. According to the 2025 Benchmarks in the Detailed Cost Analysis Model from energy data resource Open EI, the equipment necessary to produce 100 GW of tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) cells per year would require an investment of $3.5 billion if purchased from the lowest-cost Chinese suppliers.
But Tesla would also need module production equipment. The company’s module production capacity is limited and centered at its Buffalo, New York, facility, which has only recently begun making its newest residential modules.
The Open EI Benchmarks estimate it would cost a further $1.3 billion to purchase the equipment necessary to manufacture 100 GW of solar modules. This is roughly in line with estimates from industry sources who spoke with pv magazine. So, Tesla’s initial outlay of $2.9 billion seems likely to represent only the equipment necessary to manufacture cells – just the first step on its manufacturing journey.
Will future reports name other Chinese companies and cite new outlays of capital? Perhaps. Either way, purchase and delivery of the equipment to the United States is only one step in the process.
For a large industrial facility like a solar module manufacturing plant, a step-down transformer and other power electronics are necessary to connect the plant to the distribution grid. These components are currently in short supply.
A single, highly automated 2.5 GW module line consumes roughly 2.4 MW of continuous power, according to Ecoprogetti. Solar cell manufacturing is much more energy intensive. Lifecycle analysis from the International Energy Agency estimates it takes around 75 kWh of electricity to produce 1 kW of solar cells. At that rate, a 2.5 GW facility operating at capacity for a year would require a continuous 21.4 MW energy supply.
Combined and connected to a service that meets the regulatory requirement of 125% of continuous load, 100 GW of shared cell and module manufacturing facilities would potentially require energy distribution service of around 1,200 MW. The scale is enormous.
Adding to the complications, domestically produced transformers have been exceedingly hard to come by in recent years, and demand for them is at an all-time high. Market intelligence provider Wood Mackenzie has estimated wait times of two years or longer for the equipment to power new industrial facilities like module and cell manufacturing sites.
Tesla may have an ace up its sleeve here. At a September 2025 event, the company announced it would manufacture its own transformers as part of its new 20 MWh “Megablock” energy storage product.
But even if the facility has its power electronics sorted, the manufacturer must still navigate the local distribution utility’s large load interconnection process, which often involves up to two years of feasibility and impact studies and improvements to the grid. Musk’s companies have an advantage in this regard, too. Legislators in Texas, where Tesla operates its largest US gigafactory and has announced plans to expand, passed Senate Bill 6 in June 2025, directing the Public Utility Commission of Texas to develop a new framework for large load interconnections greater than 75 MW.
In March 2026, the commission issued a draft rule designed to speed up the interconnection process for large energy users. It would do so partly by imposing strict deadlines on developers and utilities, and partly by requiring proof of financial readiness to ensure developers in the interconnection queue can build projects once approved.
The next hurdle to overcome is space. Solar cell and module manufacturing facilities need a lot of it. Tesla is no stranger to large facilities. In the United States alone, the company has two gigafactories of more than 5 million square feet (464,515 m²) in California and Nevada, and a plant in Austin, Texas, that currently stretches across more than 10 million square feet, with plans in the works to expand it by 50%.
Even by those measures, the scale of 100 GW of new solar cell and module manufacturing facilities is daunting. When considering existing facilities in the United States such as those operated by Qcells, Canadian Solar, T1 Energy, and ES Foundry, each gigawatt of solar module manufacturing capacity requires an average of about 285,000 square feet of floor space, and each GW of cell manufacturing requires about 145,000 square feet.
That’s 430,000 square feet per gigawatt for both, meaning 100 GW would need 43 million square feet of space – more than four times the size of Tesla’s current largest US facility.
Would building and bringing online several huge new industrial manufacturing facilities in under three years represent an impossible undertaking? Perhaps not. Construction on the Tesla gigafactory in Austin started in 2020, and limited production began slightly more than a year later, with full operational readiness coming within two years.
Combined solar cell and module manufacturing capacity of 100 GW requires thousands of workers. Even in highly automated facilities, a 2.5 GW module manufacturing line can require 14 people per shift, or 42 workers per day. Round up to 50 to account for vacations, sick time, and part-time workers, and 100 GW of module manufacturing might require 2,000 workers.
Solar cell manufacturing can be much more labor intensive. Cell manufacturer Suniva reports 240 employees in its 1 GW Georgia cell factory, while ES Foundry says it has plans for 500 workers when its cell plant reaches its planned 3 GW of capacity.
With an estimated requirement of 200 workers per gigawatt, that’s another 20,000 people needed to staff facilities that produce up to 100 GW of cells a year. With Tesla currently claiming a worldwide workforce of more than 100,000, adding 100 GW of solar cell and module manufacturing would mean around a 20% increase in its staff.
Tesla’s plan to rely on importing Chinese-built equipment to the United States for its plans would be another massive undertaking, fraught with potential pitfalls.
Alongside challenges in equipment sourcing, costs, transformer delays and space constraints, the biggest remaining hurdle for Tesla could be export restrictions. China is reportedly considering restrictions on export of certain solar manufacturing technologies, and Chinese suppliers may have to obtain export approvals from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce for some of the equipment, which could delay or cancel the shipments.
On a more positive note for Tesla, if the equipment is delivered by Nov. 10, 2026, it would fall under the Section 301 tariff exemptions for solar manufacturing equipment, which were extended by the United States Trade Representative in November 2025.
Another facet of international trade policy is likely to hamper Tesla’s plans. New US tariffs on solar materials under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 are set to take effect this year and could dramatically increase the cost of importing raw materials needed to manufacture cells, some of which are not currently available from within the US.
Though final results of the Section 232 investigation have not yet been announced, analysts at Intertek CEA expect to see a tariff of $10/kg on imported polysilicon, with the addition of seven cents per watt for wafers sliced out of ingots made from that polysilicon. They also see a path for tariff exemptions for imports from some countries, or allowing a certain volume of material to be imported before tariffs kick in. The United States currently has domestic polysilicon production capacity to support the manufacture of around 17 GW of modules.
The Intertek CEA experts further estimate that the US administration could impose a high tariff on all imported modules that could shut non-domestic companies out of the US market for several years to come, potentially providing a larger addressable market for domestic companies like Tesla.
With his declaration of intent to bring 100 GW of new solar manufacturing capacity to the United States, Elon Musk seems to have penned a new chapter in his long history of making extra-ambitious guesses about how long it might take his companies to deliver on bold proclamations.
However, in this case, the stars could conceivably align. There is a great need in the United States for new sources of power generation paired with grid-scale battery storage, something that Tesla already excels at.
There is also a precedent for the addition of hundreds of gigawatts of PV manufacturing capacity in a single country, and with Tesla having reported $44.1 billion in cash and investments at the end of 2025, it has plenty of working capital to throw around in pursuit of this ambitious goal.
Tesla has previously shown its ability to build huge automobile and battery factories in less than two years, and with its own transformer manufacturing capability as well, it could have an inside track on getting the logistics squared away in record time.
Building 100 GW of new solar manufacturing in just three years may one day prove to have been an overly ambitious goal, but there may not be a US company more well-suited to accomplish it.
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More articles from Ben Zientara
Hello Ben, thank you for using and acknowledging the DCAM tool! Please note that DCAM was developed by the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) with sponsorship by U.S. Department of Energy. OpenEI is the web platform we currently use to share models but we are working to transition DCAM to an NLR.gov domain. We hope the models are helpful and useful for the energy community and we always feedback to improve the accuracy and relevance of the models that we share on the DCAM platform.
https://dcam.openei.org/
Thanks, Michael! The DCAM model was very useful. I appreciate the link, and will watch to see when the transition to the NLR domain is complete.
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