Article Summary –
Two small-scale solar manufacturers, Suniva and Heliene, have partnered to produce panels for their respective customer bases of US solar project developers. Under the three-year $400 million deal, Georgia-based Suniva will provide cells to Canada’s Heliene, which will assemble them into panels that can supply around 2 GW of solar projects. The collaboration will allow the companies’ clients to avail of a new federal subsidy for US-made clean energy equipment, which offers a 10% tax credit for panels with American-made cells.
US Solar Manufacturers Join to Benefit from New Federal Subsidy
Two small solar manufacturers, Georgia-based Suniva and Canada’s Heliene, are collaborating to produce panels for US solar projects. This strategic partnership enables them to leverage a new federal subsidy for domestically produced clean energy equipment, part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
This move has been praised by the Biden administration as proof that the subsidies are effective in fostering a US solar manufacturing industry robust enough to compete with China. As Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pointed out, around 20% of U.S. solar manufacturing jobs were lost from 2016 to 2020. However, the tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act are beginning to shift the trend.
Suniva, which is reactivating a previously idle factory, will provide cells to Heliene. The latter will assemble these into panels capable of supplying approximately 2 gigawatts of solar projects. This capacity can power an estimated 350,000 homes, according to Suniva.
Per the Treasury Department’s guidelines, solar project developers that utilize panels with American-made cells are eligible for a 10% tax credit. This incentive, introduced in the 2022 IRA, has been difficult to attain due to the lack of a domestic supply of silicon-based solar cells, a widely used industry technology.
For Suniva CEO Cristiano Amoruso, this agreement underscores the effectiveness of the Inflation Reduction Act and Treasury’s domestic content guidelines. “We are proud to fulfill our long-standing promise to bring back cell manufacturing to the United States at our Norcross facility,” he said.
In addition to the domestic content bonus credit, developers can claim a 30% IRA tax credit for renewable energy facilities.
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