Qcells Scores $1.45B Federal Loan for Solar Panel Plant

Solar panel maker Qcells has given its conditional commitment to a $1.45 billion federal loan guarantee to build a solar supply chain manufacturing facility in Cartersville, Georgia.

Qcells’ facility will manufacture ingots, wafers, cells, and finished panels at a multi-gigawatt scale. Qcells is investing more than $2.5 billion to boost domestic solar manufacturing.

Between Qcells’ factory in Dalton and progress in Cartersville, the company’s full annual solar production capacity in Georgia is anticipated to reach 8.4 GW by the end of this year, which is enough solar to power nearly 1.3 million homes a year. 

The loan was granted despite a two-year oversupply of solar panels accumulated in U.S. warehouses, which caused solar panel prices to nosedive, according to the US Energy Department.

While this conditional commitment indicates DOE’s intent to finance the project, the company must satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions before the Department enters into definitive financing documents and funds the loan.