One year ago this week, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law, marking the largest climate and energy spending package in U.S. history. Inside the massive energy, climate, and tax bill is $600 billion in spending, $370 billion of which is dedicated to supporting renewable energy buildout and climate resilience.
The IRA mandates a nationwide reduction of carbon emissions by roughly 40% in 2030. It also targeted a return to domestic manufacturing in the United States, bringing jobs and supply chains back onshore. About $60 billion within IRA is directed towards U.S. manufacturing.
One year later, over $100 billion in private investment has been announced, leading to the establishment of 51 new facilities or significant expansions, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).
“The unprecedented surge in demand for American-made clean energy is a clear sign that the clean energy incentives enacted last year by Congress are working,” said SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper.
SEIA shared that over 155 GW of solar supply chain capacity expansions have already been announced, leading to an estimated $20 billion investment in U.S. communities. The production additions include:
- 85 GW of solar module capacity
- 43 GW of solar cells
- 20 GW of silicon ingots and wafers
- 7 GW of inverter capacity
By 2026, it is forecast that the U.S. will have over 17 times its current capacity across modules, cells, wafers, ingots, and inverters once these facilities reach operations. Over 20,000 U.S. jobs are expected too be created by these facilities, and the U.S. solar manufacturing workforce is set to triple to over 100,000 over the next decade.
Additionally, over 65 GWh of energy storage manufacturing capacity has been announced across 14 new or expanded facilities. Since the IRA was passed, over 3 GW of large-scale energy storage projects have been deployed, and an estimated 100,000 customers have installed a residential solar system paired with battery storage.
“We’ve often dealt with the buy side, through continued tax credits for projects. That really helps installers and developers and end-users,” said George Hershman, SEIA board director and SOLV Energy chief executive officer in an interview with pv magazine USA.
“But we really never dealt with how we are going to get product, the supply side. I think the IRA did a great job with supporting the supply side to ensure we build the manufacturing supply chain in the U.S. that we all want to be able to deploy,” Hershman said.
As for political threats to IRA, there have been attempts to overturn it or strip core provisions, but Hershman said that early and continued success will de-fang any attempts to throw out the landmark industrial policy.
“We want to win the win,” he said. “We all want to be in a position where we can cut ribbons and put shovels in the ground and say the IRA brought this project to your community. A lot of these projects are in Red counties and Red districts. It’s much harder to fight against a bill that’s bringing jobs and property tax revenues to your district.”
E2 reported that Republican districts accounted for 60% of the jobs estimated to be created and 63% of the new investment under IRA. Over 74,000 direct jobs have been created by these manufacturing announcements, according to an E2 report.
SEIA forecasts that the solar industry will generate over $565 billion in private sector investment over the next decade. By 2033, cumulative solar capacity will reach 668 GW, enough to power every home east of the Mississippi River. This is also equivalent to offsetting 459 million metric tons of carbon emissions each year, representing about one-third of all power sector emissions based on 2021 levels.
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Hi Ryan – cool article, Ty. Question- how does FirstSolar fit in these numbers? Are they just module factories or do they cover all stages (ingots, wafers, cells, modules) with each announcement?
Hi JFW, FS only makes thin film modules, as far as I know. So there are no wafers or ingots in that process, just a large plastic-like sheet of film sandwiched between glass. They claim to have improved quality of these modules immensely, from total failures in the early days to now setting efficiency records for this type of material. But these modules have not been available for sale to the public, only for use with utility scale mega projects. Be advised, however, that FS has had some quite nasty problems for many years in the past with corruption and lying, fatal safety negligence leading to the death of workers, losing shareholder lawsuits, fraud, non-performance, etc. As but one example, their former CEO was described by the US federal justice department as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the infamous Enron case! Until he escaped justice, like a rat leaving a sinking ship, into the arms of FS – where he teamed up with several other ex-Enron cronies…