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Washington wants to make it harder for US solar firms to rely on China. A panel factory in Texas shows how that’s already happening — but why weaning them off entirely could be harder than it looks.
The industry is bracing for one of its biggest shocks in years: In December, new Commerce Department rules will require panel manufacturers to pay a fixed minimum price and a tariff of up to 15% for cells and certain other specialized components they import from abroad. The rules, under a provision called Section 232, are designed to finally quash a cat-and-mouse game US trade officials have been playing with China for years, in which Chinese solar makers shift between factories in various Asian or African locales to stay one step ahead of American tariffs.
One of the companies navigating this change is the Texas-based panel manufacturer T1 Energy, which has roots linked to China but is now racing toward greater independence. Because the new rules will drive up panel prices, some solar installers are panicking; at least 1 gigawatt worth of large-scale solar projects has been cancelled in recent months because of 232-related price adjustments, according to solar research firm Anza.
But T1 CEO Daniel Barcelo can’t wait. The rules “will really level the playing field” against Chinese rivals, he told me. “Building something in America still takes longer and costs more than building it in most countries.”
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US President Donald Trump may not be a big fan of solar, but it’s the country’s fastest-growing source of power generation. Standing up an independent domestic solar supply chain is critical to the country’s energy security and AI ambitions, and to lowering power prices, especially as Beijing moves to restrict the export of some key solar technologies.
But, although it may be wise to raise trade barriers that push more China-affiliated solar components out of the US market, China’s role in global solar supply chains is so pervasive that instantly severing all ties could kill many US solar manufacturing efforts in the crib. Future growth for this industry depends on a more nuanced trade policy that gives US companies the space to benefit from China’s world-leading solar expertise while the next phase of home-grown plants gets built.
At this point, the US imports almost no solar cells or other core components from China, and imports of panels from anywhere recently hit a seven-year low now that more US module assembly factories are cropping up. But even T1, like many of its peers, still needs China for some vital aspects of its operations. And when I visited the company’s factory, it was clear that achieving a full divorce between the American and Chinese solar industries could be more complex than many in Washington appreciate.
T1 operates a sprawling, cutting-edge solar module factory on the outskirts of Dallas, and is a few months away from finishing a second factory to manufacture its own cells based on technology that was first developed for the Chinese firms it’s looking to supplant. Last month, the company was granted special permission from Commerce to continue importing cells from Asian suppliers without being penalized for stockpiling ahead of the 232 deadline. It is also awaiting a verdict on a second Commerce waiver that would allow it to dodge the 232 tariffs altogether while it completes its onshoring investments.
The company was born from the clean tech trade wars that have engulfed the US, Europe, and China in recent years. In the early 2020s Barcelo, whose background is in global oil and gas finance, was working to set up an EV battery factory in Norway. But that company, Freyr, got pushed by intense competition from Chinese rivals — and simultaneously pulled westward by inducements in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The company’s first plan was to build a $2.5 billion battery factory in Georgia. But that was scrapped after Barcelo spotted a better deal in solar, where there were only a few domestic manufacturers at a moment when demand was exploding and Chinese firms, who could see a US crackdown coming, were looking to pull up stakes. He pivoted, and agreed in December 2024 to a $621 million deal to buy the Dallas factory, along with supply contracts and other assets, from Changzhou-based Trina Solar, one of the world’s biggest producers, which had just completed building it.
A wave of similar US takeovers swept the industry around that time, including some in which Chinese firms retained a minority stake. Indeed, more than 40% of the 66 GW of operational US module manufacturing capacity today originated as facilities owned by Chinese manufacturers or joint ventures involving Chinese firms, according to Wood Mackenzie analyst Elissa Pierce. In T1’s case, Trina dropped its stake entirely. But T1’s relationships with Trina and other Chinese firms remained essential: A Trina executive briefly came over to serve as the new venture’s chief strategy officer. The factory’s anchor customer became Trina itself, which committed to buy 1 GW of panels per year, one-fifth of the factory’s capacity; on the day I visited, robotic arms were gingerly packaging panels into Trina-branded boxes. The first thing I saw on the factory floor was a stack of specialized glass from a company in Zhejiang.
Other Asian countries are essential, too: T1 imports cells and other components from a range of suppliers in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. T1 inherited Trina’s polysilicon supply contract from a Michigan company called Hemlock, which is minority owned by a Japanese chemical firm. In July, it paid $135 million to a Singaporean solar firm for intellectual property behind the cell and module technology that Trina and others use.
Russell Gold, a veteran Wall Street Journal energy journalist who is now T1’s spokesperson, said that although the company now feels “pretty comfortable running this factory by ourselves,” it still works closely with outside contractors, including some from China, to maintain equipment and train its workers on what is essentially a Chinese factory floor plopped in East Texas. Chinese solar manufacturing equipment, Gold said, is still “the best in the world.” Inside a gleaming warehouse the width of a few Manhattan avenues, a succession of machine arms, conveyor belts, and ovens press cells onto dinner-table-sized panels, more than 17,000 every day. Several hundred humans are needed to keep things moving and ensure quality control. A few autonomous robots roll around moving heavy stuff while playing Darth Vader’s Imperial March to signal their approach.
The staff reflects the diversity of the strong immigrant communities in Dallas: I met workers, at least half of whom seemed to be women, from Equatorial Guinea, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. One group was clustered around a machine that seemed to be malfunctioning. It turned out they were receiving an impromptu lesson from a contractor from the Chinese equipment manufacturer Wuxi Autowell — “technology transfer in action!” Gold observed. The contractor was born in China but had lived in Texas for a decade, helping to stand up the state’s surging clean tech industry. The member of his student cohort with the strongest English translated some of his instructions into Spanish for the rest of the group.
“We need to do more of this in the US,” Gold said. “Or we can kiss energy security goodbye.”
In addition to T1’s new cell factory, other leading solar makers like Qcells and First Solar are building out their own new US facilities and severing supply lines to China wherever possible. But if Trump administration trade barriers were meant to spark a domestic manufacturing renaissance, it hasn’t happened yet. Investment in new solar facilities so far this year has been flat from the previous year at about $2.9 billion, according to Clean Investment Monitor — and $2.8 billion in other solar factory investments have been cancelled, so the industry is effectively at a standstill because of conflicting federal policies.
According to Wood Mackenzie’s Pierce, the combination of tariffs increasing costs and key tax credits being phased out has had an impact. “As a result,” she said, “some financiers and manufacturers have become more cautious about committing capital to new upstream facilities, even as policymakers continue to push for a more fully domestic solar supply chain.”
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