US offers $1.5 billion conditional loan guarantee to Qcells for solar facility in Georgia

The U.S. Energy Department said on Thursday it would be offering a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee of up to $1.45 billion to South Korea’s Qcells to help the solar panel maker build a production facility in Georgia.
The Loan Programs Office of the department would help build a $2.5 billion facility that could produce 3.3 gigawatt of solar panels per year and could supply half a million American households.
Incentives in President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act seek to bolster U.S. production of clean energy components to reduce that reliance on overseas-produced goods.
Most panels assembled in the U.S. use components made in Asia where prices have dropped sharply in the last year.
The facility would be the largest U.S. plant for ingot and wafer, which are used for making solar power cells and modules, the energy department said.