In a ceremony that featured appearances from U.S. and foreign dignitaries alongside company executives and industry professionals, Japanese solar manufacturer Toyo Co., Ltd celebrated the expansion of its Humble, Texas solar module assembly plant on Tuesday.
The facility, which first became operational in Oct. 2025, now boasts 2 GW of annual module capacity. The company plans a $357 million expansion of the site to include a 1.5 GW heterojunction (HJT) solar cell manufacturing line it expects to be operational by Q1 2028. By that time, the plant is expected to host a workforce of 400 employees.
Toyo currently manufactures solar cells at a 4 GW facility in Hawassa, Ethiopia and a 2 GW factory in Vietnam.
Jeffrey Kessler, U.S. under secretary of commerce for industry and security joined in the ceremony to celebrate the company’s domestic investments. “Toyo’s announcement is the direct result of the Trump Administration’s bold policies to bring manufacturing and jobs back to America,” he said in a comment. “By investing hundreds of millions of dollars to expand its Texas factory, onshoring overseas production, and committing to use exclusively US polysilicon, Toyo is making an important contribution to America’s manufacturing renaissance.”
The company was also joined by solar industry veteran Paul Wormser, senior vice president of Intertek CEA. Shortly before the ribbon cutting event, Toyo announced the results of an Intertek CEA factory audit, the outcome of which the company described as “a strong result.”
Wormser went further in a comment, stating “Our team conducts a rigorous, independent review of every element of a factory’s operations — quality systems, processes, and risk controls. We check a thousand different things in twelve major areas. And in those twelve major areas, we have never found perfection, but Toyo has gotten our highest grade.”
Immediately preceding the event, Toyo held an “Analyst Day” webinar in which the company described its recent financial performance and plans for the near term.
During the call, Toyo executives discussed the planned buildout of the company’s domestic cell line (currently in the permitting and approvals stage), and its response to the Ethiopia circumvention inquiry initiated by the U.S. Department of Commerce in July, 2026, which followed from a petition filed in May by several domestic solar companies.
The inquiry seeks to determine whether cells made using Chinese silicon wafers illegally circumvent import tariffs on Chinese solar products. Toyo says it is seeking clarification on whether its cells — which it says are made using wafers produced in Indonesia from mostly U.S. polysilicon — will be subject to penalties if Commerce finds that circumvention has occurred.
The company says it hopes for product-coverage guidance from the Commerce Department, or, at the very least a path to certification of cells for companies that can provide production, sourcing and shipment data that show non-Chinese sources for materials.
U.S. solar manufacturing will be a featured topic in our upcoming pv magazine USA Week 2026. The virtual event will be presented via live webcasts across three days, Oct. 20 – 22.
Click the image below to register for the event.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: [email protected].
Comments
Please login to comment
Friday, October 23, 2026
11:00 am – 12:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Monday, October 12, 2026
10:00 am – 11:00 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Thursday, October 8, 2026
11:30 am – 12:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now!
Available in print and digital – get your copy today!
Monday, October 26, 2026
10:30 am – 11:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Thursday, October 7, 2026
11:00 am – 12:30 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.
You have no items in your basket.
