The United States passed a special solar manufacturing landmark during the second quarter of 2026; cumulative domestic production of solar PV modules reached 100 GWp-dc.
While this production landmark seemed like a distant dream just a few years ago, it now serves as a sharp wake-up call to the U.S. solar industry, with domestic solar manufacturing officially shifting from optional to essential status.
The announcement here is also in stark contrast to years of hype surrounding factories that were never built, meaningless capacity metrics being added up, and a fixation on imported data.
And it is a reminder that the U.S. solar sector should stop referring to misleading third-party capacity graphs or PR-driven ‘map pins’ – and start tracking actual production numbers to see the real market.
The 100 GW number represents modules physically produced at factories in the United States, with the analysis covering more than five decades and linked directly to bottom-up company and site-level data across hundreds of factories through to today.
This research project was done in the months leading up to the inaugural Solar Manufacturing USA 2026 conference in Austin, Texas on 22-23 September 2026, forming much of the background content for the event itself, including my opening talk at the start of the first day.
Since the early 1970’s, U.S. solar PV manufacturing has gone through repeated cycles of investment, expansion, retrenchment and reinvention. Many factories were announced but never built. Others were built but operated at very low utilization rates, changed ownership or closed before producing any meaningful volume.
The 100 GW module-production crossing therefore provides a useful point to look backwards before attention turns to the next phase of the domestic U.S. solar manufacturing build-out – tracking production metrics for ingots, wafer and cells with a similar level of scrutiny from the factory-floor level.
Figure 1: Cumulative U.S. solar PV module production reached 100 GW during Q2 2026, with more than 70% added since the introduction of the Inflation Reduction Act late in 2022.
Looking back on my two-decades-plus as a solar PV market analyst, this is an article I never imagined I would write. Still less did I expect that by 2026, I would be diving deep into the factory-floor metrics of more than fifty companies across the United States—uncovering site-specific output in a furious nationwide rush to onshore an entire solar ecosystem.
Twenty years ago, during my early days at Solarbuzz, the landscape looked entirely different.Back then, my research was consumed by the entire thin-film phenomenon. I often spent my days mapping the nuances of fifteen-plus process-flow variants of CIGS panel manufacturing, an era when the U.S. was the undisputed driver of that technology.For years, U.S. solar manufacturing felt like a fascinating playground for technological learning – but not a force of global commercial significance.
My U.S. solar journey began with factory visits to the likes of Frederick and Fremont. In the intervening decades, the geographical center of manufacturing ownership radically shifted, taking me on an endless loop of flights across India, Taiwan, China, South Korea, and Southeast Asia to track the industry’s massive wave of global commoditization.
Now, the story seems to have come full-circle, and I find myself right back where I started: returning my research focus to U.S. soil, hunting down capital expenditures, process flow variants, and true production volumes at the company level.
To be the one tracking this data, at this exact moment in history, makes the announcement of this landmark milestone all the more personal and rewarding.
The origins of U.S. PV manufacturing go back to the earliest commercial years of the solar industry in the 1970’s. Until 1985, the United States had produced and shipped about 100 MW of PV modules, accounting for almost all global sales over that period. At the peak, companies like Arco Solar and Solarex had annual production volumes in the mid-megawatt range – tiny numbers by today’s standards, but global solar production leadership status at the time.
During the 1990’s, Japan became the first country to build PV manufacturing plants at scale and with a supporting government/industry infrastructure that included companies with deep electronics and manufacturing experience. Linked directly to the first subsidized domestic solar end-market, this allowed Japanese PV module production to grow quickly, ultimately exceeding annual domestic U.S. production volumes by the end of the decade.
To capitalize on the growing U.S. market, these leading Japanese solar manufacturers began establishing localized module assembly plants directly within the United States. This overseas manufacturing strategy allowed them to minimize the logistical costs of shipping modules while navigating evolving local content preferences. This move ignited a broader trend, drawing a wave of foreign-owned companies eager to invest in and supply the expanding U.S. solar infrastructure.
Sharp established module manufacturing in Memphis, Tennessee, while Kyocera later assembled modules in San Diego. Sanyo invested upstream in ingot and wafer production in Salem, Oregon. However, U.S.-specific production volumes were modest compared with the manufacturing scale being created then across Asia as a whole.
This same theme was repeated with other international entrants. Chinese company Suntech opened a module factory in Arizona, while China Sunergy later established production in Sacramento.
Korean companies eventually became visible in the United States, with LG Electronics manufacturing modules in Huntsville, Alabama and Qcells (then branding/trading globally as Hanwha Q CELLS) beginning production in Dalton, Georgia.
Some of these operations lasted, but most were short-lived and of minimal long-term significance.
The most dramatic U.S. manufacturing cycle (before the introduction of the Inflation Reduction Act at the end of 2022) came between roughly 2007 and 2012.
SolarWorld expanded its U.S. c-Si operations in Oregon, Evergreen Solar built out string ribbon production in Massachusetts, and a large group of thin-film companies attracted substantial amounts of capital.
Unisolar, Solyndra, Global Solar, MiaSole, Stion, Abound Solar and others collectively made the United States unusually thin-film-heavy during this period. The investment footprint was large, but significant production volumes failed to materialize.
Indeed, this period forms one of the most useful lessons from our 100 GW story. Capacity announcements and factory spending in the United States can dominate headlines for years without translating into sustained output.
First Solar is the major exception. Its CdTe manufacturing base in Ohio provided continuity through periods when much of the rest of U.S. module manufacturing was contracting, while recent factory builds in Alabama and Louisiana have taken domestic production volumes to significantly higher levels.
Adding up First Solar’s domestic production volumes from each of its factories in the United States, through to the end of Q2 2026, shows that approximately 39% of all solar modules ever manufactured in the United States have come from this one company.
This is an astonishing statistic—and all the more commendable given that First Solar single-handedly forged a viable thin-film alternative to the mountainous silicon-based capacity being amassed in China during this period.
Figure 2: By the end of Q2 2026, First Solar had accounted for almost 40% of all solar module production volumes accumulated since the U.S. entry into solar module manufacturing in the early 1970’s. South Korean Hanwha Solutions/Chemical’s U.S. manufacturing operations, Qcells/Q_CELLS, is the second major solar module manufacturing entity by production volumes.
For crystalline-silicon (c-Si) modules, the modern U.S. recovery began before the Inflation Reduction Act. U.S. c-Si production remained small and volatile through much of the 2010’s. The Section 201 safeguard period then encouraged a new group of module factories, including Qcells in Georgia and JinkoSolar in Florida, alongside LG Electronics, Silfab and Heliene.
The much larger paradigm shift arrived with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 and its Section 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit. The lucrative 7 cents-per-watt module credit provided an immediate economic windfall for domestic assembly, while First Solar’s vertically integrated thin-film operations stood uniquely positioned to sweep up the additional, highly lucrative upstream credits available
From 2023 onward, the ranks of meaningful U.S. c-Si producers expanded rapidly. Qcells aggressively scaled its Georgia platform; T1 Energy successfully ramped its newly acquired 5 GW facility (originally built by Trina Solar) in Wilmer, Texas; and Canadian Solar established a major multi-gigawatt footprint in Mesquite.
A wave of further capacity from SEG Solar, Waaree, Illuminate, Imperial Star, JinkoSolar, Silfab, and Heliene rapidly injected volume into the market, even as First Solar pushed domestic output to historic levels with its new builds in Alabama and Louisiana
It took the U.S. solar industry roughly half a century to achieve its first cumulative 100 GW of module production, yet global output is now measured in hundreds of gigawatts every single year. While this disparity emphasizes how far the dominance of global manufacturing hasbshifted away from the United States, it also highlights why the domestic expansion since 2023 is fundamentally different from the smaller, volatile cycles that preceded it.
Going forward, the true test of this expansion lies entirely in factory execution: what these new facilities will actually produce, at what utilization rates, and using which technologies and supply chains. Crucially, the ultimate question is whether the wave of capital currently being deployed into domestic cells, wafers, ingots, and upstream materials can successfully coalesce into a durable, self-sustaining manufacturing ecosystem.
Given that U.S. capacity figures have lacked any real correlation to actual manufactured products since the early 2000’s, the sector must urgently move past misleading, headline-driven ‘capacity-mismatch’ metrics across the c-Si value chain. True domestic progress can only be measured by focusing on verified production metrics within an integrated ecosystem.
I will return to these critical questions in much greater detail on September 22, when I deliver the opening address at Solar Manufacturing USA 2026 in Austin, Texas.
For now, the 100 GW milestone deserves to stand on its own. It is a landmark forged over decades of U.S. solar manufacturing history – stretching from the early days of Arco Solar and Solarex, through the thin-film boom, the Section 201 restart, and the current post-IRA surge. While the next 100 GW of domestic module production is likely to materialize within just three years, long-term success will be determined by the health of the entire ecosystem, not simply module production alone.
If the silicon-based ecosystem fails to integrate as an effective, functional unit, it will simply open the door for the next major landmark in U.S. solar history: the day First Solar reaches the 100 GW milestone entirely on its own, driven purely by its independent, domestic production volumes.
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