First Solar Opens First Phase of $330 Million South Carolina Module Plant

First Solar has started production at the first phase of its new module-finishing plant in Gaffney, South Carolina, with a ribbon-cutting this week attended by Governor Henry McMaster, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Gaffney’s mayor, plant workers and First Solar CEO Mark Widmar.

A $330 million plant, built in under a year

First Solar first announced the roughly $330 million Gaffney project in November 2025. “Less than a year after we selected Gaffney, this facility is ready to produce American solar technology,” Widmar said at the opening. Governor McMaster said “South Carolinians are building American energy technology in Gaffney.” The site is First Solar’s sixth U.S. manufacturing location, completing the final production steps for Series 6 Plus thin-film modules using cells manufactured at the company’s overseas sites.

Capacity: 1.7 GW now, more by 2027

Coverage of the opening describes the newly started first phase as adding 1.7 gigawatts of annual module capacity, with a second phase due by mid-2027 that will introduce First Solar’s CuRe technology and lift the site’s total to 3.4 GW. That differs somewhat from the capacity First Solar cited when it first announced the project in late 2025, when the company described a single facility ramping to roughly 3.7 GW of annual nameplate capacity; the discrepancy appears to reflect how the two-phase build-out has been described by different outlets rather than a change in the underlying investment. About 500 people currently work at the plant, with First Solar expecting to add nearly 200 more jobs as the facility reaches full production.

Riding a wave of policy-driven U.S. demand

First Solar has tied the investment to rising domestic demand following recent U.S. trade actions on imported solar cells and modules and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July 2025, both of which have pushed utility-scale developers to favor U.S.-made panels. As one of the few large-scale domestic thin-film manufacturers not dependent on polysilicon imports, First Solar has been a direct beneficiary of that policy shift, alongside rivals racing to stand up their own U.S. capacity.

Part of a broader U.S. and global solar manufacturing build-out

Gaffney adds to a wave of new solar manufacturing and deployment announcements The Daily Energy has covered this year, including India’s production-linked incentive scheme for solar and battery manufacturing and Algeria’s newly commissioned 300 MW solar plant at El Oued, part of a global pattern of governments and manufacturers racing to localize solar supply chains.

Sources

• pv magazine USA, “First Solar opens first phase of South Carolina module plant,” October 29, 2026 — for capacity figures, technology details and company background.
• PV Tech, “First Solar inaugurates 1.7GW initial phase of South Carolina module manufacturing facility,” October 2026 — for capacity and phasing details.
• Yahoo Finance, “First Solar Opens $330M South Carolina Plant, Targets 3.4 GW Capacity by 2027,” October 2026 — for investment figure and 2027 capacity target.
• Opening ceremony remarks by CEO Mark Widmar and Governor Henry McMaster, Gaffney, South Carolina, late October 2026 — for direct quotes.

Illustrative image. Photo: Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons — source