US offers conditional loan guarantees of $1.5 billion to Qcells in Georgia for solar plant

The U.S. Department of Energy announced on Thursday that it has made a conditional commitment of up $1.45 billion in loan guarantees to South Korea's Qcells for the company's Cartersville, Georgia solar manufacturing plant.

The Loan Programs Office of the agency said that funding will help Qcells construct a $2.5 Billion facility to produce solar panels, as well as inputs such a cells, ingots, and wafers. The department stated that the factory could produce enough panels to cover half a million American homes per year.

Qcells has won a victory with this announcement. The company had warned about the threat of cheap imports to U.S. Solar factories. The company is a division within South Korea's Hanwha and one of dozens of companies that have applied for incentives under President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which aims to boost U.S. production.

Once fully operational, Qcells' Cartersville facility will employ nearly 2,000 people. The company has an existing plant in Dalton in Georgia that opened in 2019.

The DOE stated that the company must meet certain financial, legal, and other requirements before a loan can be finalized. Reporting by Nichola Broom in Cambria and Sourasis S Bose in Bengaluru. Editing and production by Vijay Kishore, Jonathan Oatis and Jonathan Kishore.

(source: Reuters)