Solar manufacturer CubicPV is planning to establish a 10GW mono wafer manufacturing facility in the US that it said will be the “first of this scale” in the country.
The plant would fill a void in the US PV manufacturing supply chain; the country has no domestic solar ingot, wafer or cell manufacturing capacity, according to research from the Solar Energy Industries Association published earlier this year.
97% of silicon wafer production capacity is located in China, led by manufacturers LONGi and TCL Zhonghuan.
A choice for the location to build the new facility is expected to be finalised during Q1 2023, with construction starting soon after and work to be completed in 2024. It will be fully ramped up in 2025.
The plant is expected to create 1,500 new direct jobs and meet the anticipated surge in demand for domestic wafer production.
“The IRA [Inflation Reduction Act] represents a titanic shift in the global solar landscape, and the US is poised to become the world’s most competitive location to manufacture solar. We’re excited to have a role in the US manufacturing renaissance while accelerating our business plan and supporting the development of our next-generation tandem module technology,” said CubicPV’s CEO, Frank van Mierlo.
In addition to planning to build a domestic wafer production facility in the US, the company has raised US$26 million in Series B financing that will accelerate its research and development activities specific to tandem module development.
Formed in 2021 following the merger of 1366 Technologies and Hunt Perovskite, CubicPV’s technology uses the company’s Direct Wafer and perovskite processes.
The funding round was led by private equity fund manager Synergy Capital and SCG Cleanergy and joined with returning lead investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Hunt Energy Enterprises.
“Synergy is convinced of the power of tandem and its promise to underpin the next era of solar growth. With Direct Wafer and perovskite, Cubic has the key technologies to capture that growth,” said Sudhir Maheshwari, managing partner at Synergy Capital.