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Updated: September 13, 2026 @ 3:25 am
An aerial view shows the former Fuji manufacturing campus in Greenwood County, where ES Foundry now operates. The company occupies space within the sprawling industrial site, which offered the electrical, water and wastewater infrastructure needed for solar cell manufacturing.
A solar cell manufactured by ES Foundry is displayed at the company’s Greenwood facility. The company produces individual solar cells that are later assembled into larger solar modules.
ES Foundry’s Lionel Moss leads a training session at the company’s Greenwood manufacturing facility. The company has expanded its workforce as production capacity has grown.
ES Foundry operates from portions of the former Fuji manufacturing campus in Greenwood County, where existing electrical, water and wastewater infrastructure played a major role in the company’s site-selection decision. INSET: A map of the former Fuji manufacturing campus shows the two buildings used by ES Foundry. The company occupies about 100,000 square feet in the M building and about 400,000 square feet in the P building.
A map of the former Fuji manufacturing campus shows the two buildings used by ES Foundry. The company occupies about 100,000 square feet in the M building and about 400,000 square feet in the P building.
A sign at the former Fuji manufacturing campus directs visitors to ES Foundry’s offices in the P plant. The company occupies space in two buildings on the industrial campus.
An aerial view shows the former Fuji manufacturing campus in Greenwood County, where ES Foundry now operates. The company occupies space within the sprawling industrial site, which offered the electrical, water and wastewater infrastructure needed for solar cell manufacturing.
A solar cell manufactured by ES Foundry is displayed at the company’s Greenwood facility. The company produces individual solar cells that are later assembled into larger solar modules.
ES Foundry’s Lionel Moss leads a training session at the company’s Greenwood manufacturing facility. The company has expanded its workforce as production capacity has grown.
ES Foundry operates from portions of the former Fuji manufacturing campus in Greenwood County, where existing electrical, water and wastewater infrastructure played a major role in the company’s site-selection decision. INSET: A map of the former Fuji manufacturing campus shows the two buildings used by ES Foundry. The company occupies about 100,000 square feet in the M building and about 400,000 square feet in the P building.
A map of the former Fuji manufacturing campus shows the two buildings used by ES Foundry. The company occupies about 100,000 square feet in the M building and about 400,000 square feet in the P building.
A sign at the former Fuji manufacturing campus directs visitors to ES Foundry’s offices in the P plant. The company occupies space in two buildings on the industrial campus.
Before ES Foundry produced a single solar cell in Greenwood County, CEO Alex Zhu spent months flying across the country looking for somewhere to build them.
Greenwood was not the original first choice.
But, inside the former Fuji manufacturing campus, Zhu found something difficult and expensive to recreate from scratch.
A large industrial building, significant electrical capacity and existing water and wastewater infrastructure that was already suited to the type of manufacturing ES Foundry planned to bring to the United States.
“The building,” Zhu said when asked what ultimately made Greenwood stand out.
That decision offers another look into an economic development process the Index-Journal has examined from several angles in recent months.
Previous installments looked at how economic development works from the government side, how projects reach Greenwood County, how infrastructure shapes growth and what role local officials play once companies express interest.
One perspective had largely been missing: the company sitting on the other side of the table.
For ES Foundry, the process started before Greenwood County officials knew the company would eventually call the former Fuji campus home.
Looking for the right place
Zhu said the company’s search began around the middle of 2023. As solar module manufacturing expanded in the United States, Zhu saw what he believed would become a shortage further down the domestic supply chain: solar cells.
ES Foundry makes the individual cells assembled into larger solar modules rather than completed solar panels.
General Manager of Operations Lionel Moss said each cell produced in Greenwood is roughly 3.5 inches square and generates about 7.7 watts. However, finding somewhere to make them required more than finding an empty industrial building.
Zhu worked with Phoenix Investors, owner of the former Fuji property, to examine potential sites around the country.
“We fly around the U.S.,” Zhu said. “I go to a lot of the different places.”
The process took several months and included engineering studies and simulations to determine whether existing buildings could be repurposed for the equipment and production capacity the company needed.
Another location was initially preferred, Zhu said, but Greenwood eventually emerged as the better fit. ES Foundry needed a facility with a large, stable electrical supply and infrastructure capable of handling a manufacturing process that uses significant amounts of water and requires wastewater treatment.
The former Fuji campus has all three.
Moss said the existing utility infrastructure allows the company to move faster than it could have at a site where those systems had to be built from scratch. The company now occupies portions of two buildings at the former Fuji campus, about 400,000 square feet in the “P” building and another 100,000 square feet in the “M” building.
Point of county involvement
Greenwood County Economic Development Director James Bateman said his office first became involved with the ES Foundry project in October 2023.
By then, the company had already begun its national site search.
Bateman said Greenwood County Economic Development served as a facilitator during the company’s formal site-selection process, arranging visits to the former Fuji campus, introducing company leadership to local stakeholders and familiarizing officials with the community.
Once Greenwood became the chosen location, the economic development office assisted with utility and permitting coordination and workforce resource referrals.
Building renovations were handled by Phoenix Investors and Phoenix Construction, Bateman said.
Zhu said ES Foundry signed its lease for the Greenwood property on May 17, 2024. Construction preparation began that summer, and the company was preparing for production by January 2025.
The timeline illustrates a distinction county economic development officials have emphasized throughout the Index-Journal’s series: Local government does not always start the process by selecting a company and asking it to come to Greenwood.
In this case, the company was already looking. Greenwood County’s role was helping move the project through the process once ES Foundry became interested in the site.
No county incentive package
The project also differs from some industrial developments in another way. According to ES Foundry and Greenwood County, no local incentive package was attached to it.
Bateman said the project received no county incentive package, special tax arrangement, grants or county-funded infrastructure assistance. Zhu offered the same answer when asked whether the company received government funding to locate in Greenwood.
“No money,” Zhu said. “We got no money from any of the governments or systems.”
That was partly a matter of timing. Zhu said the company considered seeking assistance, but waiting through an incentive process could have delayed its ability to sign a lease and move forward with the project.
“We just cannot wait,” Zhu said.
Bateman said the S.C. Department of Commerce provided no discretionary incentives to the project. Bateman said other organizations assisted in different ways.
“Duke Energy assisted ES Foundry with understanding its on-site electric infrastructure, capacity to serve the project, rates and billing. Piedmont Technical College and SC Works hosted a job fair for ES Foundry,” Bateman said.
Built to grow
Existing utilities were central to ES Foundry’s decision, and the facility was designed from the beginning with expansion in mind. Solar cell production runs around the clock and involves equipment that cannot be shut down at the end of each workday.
“It’s a 24/7 operation, meaning 365 days,” Moss said.
To put the production rate in more familiar terms, ES Foundry calculates that one day of manufacturing of about 250,000 solar cells represents enough generating capacity to supply more than 320 average U.S. homes for a year.
The plant was planned from the beginning to ultimately accommodate three gigawatts of annual solar cell manufacturing capacity, requiring much of the electrical, water and overhead infrastructure to be prepared before all stages of production were installed.
The operation also makes ES Foundry a significant water customer.
Greenwood Commissioners of Public Works General Manager Jeff Meredith said the facility currently uses about 500,000 gallons per day on average, with peak demand around 590,000 gallons per day.
At three gigawatts of production capacity, CPW projects water demand could reach about 1.2 million gallons per day.
Meredith added that CPW has sufficient existing capacity to serve the facility at that level without additional major system improvements.
The utility said it did not fund major water infrastructure improvements for the project and that Phoenix Investors and ES Foundry paid for connection or facility-related improvement costs.
ES Foundry also received no economic development rate, grant or utility credit from CPW, Meredith confirmed.
Electricity demand is substantial, too. The facility was consuming about six megawatts of electricity and had secured 19 megawatts of capacity to accommodate its production ramp-up.
For Moss, that existing utility capacity is one of the advantages of the site.
“You can imagine the water requirements for the cooling water systems, the power requirements, because it takes power to make power,” Moss said.
Water use is separate from the wastewater generated by the manufacturing process. ES Foundry initially purchased wastewater-treatment capacity from Greenwood Metropolitan District for about 120,000 gallons per day.
Moss said Wednesday the company has since increased that purchased capacity to about 199,000 gallons per day.
ES Foundry had its ribbon cutting in January 2025 and began continuous production and commercial shipments that April. The first phase brought roughly one gigawatt of manufacturing capacity online.
By mid-2026, the company had commissioned a second gigawatt and was working toward its planned third.
That expansion is now complete.
ES Foundry announced Wednesday that a 2-gigawatt expansion has brought the Greenwood facility to three gigawatts of annual solar cell manufacturing capacity.
That growth addresses the market gap Zhu said led him to create the company in the first place: domestic solar module manufacturing has expanded faster than domestic cell manufacturing, leaving module producers dependent on imported cells.
Growth means people
Machines, water and electricity are only part of operating the plant.
ES Foundry also needs people.
Moss said the company ended 2024 with about 82 employees. By the end of 2025, that number climbed to 364.
As of Wednesday, ES Foundry had 418 permanent employees and 113 temporary workers, bringing its current workforce to 531.
Bateman said ES Foundry’s hiring and investment have exceeded projections.
Since the company’s January 2025 ribbon cutting, Bateman said ES Foundry has created more new jobs, and done so more rapidly, than any other recently announced company in Greenwood County.
Running the facility requires four shift teams to maintain continuous production, with more than 65 direct production employees working on a shift, Moss said. That growth also comes as manufacturers across the region compete for workers.
The company is also investing in workforce development as it expands. Moss said ES Foundry has formally signed a three-year, $1.5 million commitment with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. As part of the partnership, Piedmont Technical College will offer a new 12-month program called Tech AMP, supported and recognized by MIT, aimed at developing manufacturing skills among workers.
For ES Foundry, the workforce will have to expand alongside production.
“The labor force will follow,” Moss said.
Standards as plant expandsWhile ES Foundry expanded its manufacturing capacity, the company was also working toward international certifications covering quality, environmental management and workplace safety.
On Wednesday, ES Foundry announced it had achieved ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 certifications following an integrated management system audit. ISO 9001 relates to quality management, ISO 14001 covers environmental management and ISO 45001 addresses occupational health and safety.
The company said the audit concluded with zero major and zero minor nonconformities.
“Domestic manufacturing isn’t defined by scale alone,” Moss said in the announcement. “It is built through strong standards, disciplined execution and systems that support consistent performance.”
Moss said finished solar-cell scrap is recycled and the company also works to recover other waste and reuse packaging material.
The company said certifications establish a management framework for quality, environmental performance and worker safety as production continues at its expanded scale.
ES Foundry’s growth is also tied to a solar market heavily influenced by federal manufacturing and supply-chain rules.
Zhu said the company’s future growth ultimately will depend on how electricity demand develops, including demand associated with artificial intelligence and data centers.
“We are really at the frontier of re-industry of U.S manufacturing in solar,” Zhu said. “We will continue grow as the market needs.”
From Greenwood County’s perspective, ES Foundry represents one of the fastest-growing recent industrial projects in the county.
From Zhu’s perspective, it began with something much simpler: finding a building that worked.
The company searched nationally.
Greenwood County entered the process after that search was underway.
Utilities, an existing industrial site and available infrastructure helped close the gap between interest and investment. No county incentive package brought ES Foundry here. The old Fuji campus did much of the selling itself.
And less than three years after Zhu began flying around the country searching for a site, ES Foundry says its Greenwood operation has reached 3 gigawatts of annual solar cell manufacturing capacity, with production continuing around the clock.
For a process often discussed in terms of announcements, incentives and government meetings, ES Foundry offers another view of how economic development happens.
Sometimes, the company comes looking first.
Contact Renee Ortiz at 864-943-5643. Follow her on X: @By_ReneeOrtiz
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