U.S. solar module production reaches historic 100 GW landmark

U.S. factories have now made 100 gigawatts worth of solar panels, total, since the industry began in the 1970s. That's a milestone for domestic manufacturing, and it matters because more than 70% of that total has been produced just since late 2022, when the Inflation Reduction Act took effect. A tax credit in that law, worth 7 cents per watt for panels assembled in the U.S., pushed companies like Qcells, First Solar, T1 Energy and Canadian Solar to ramp up production in states including Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Louisiana and Ohio.

For homeowners, this is mostly background context rather than something that changes your options today. More domestic manufacturing capacity generally supports the argument that U.S.-made solar panels are becoming more available, which matters if you care about buying American-made equipment or if a program you're using has domestic-content requirements. First Solar alone has made nearly 40% of all solar panels ever produced in the U.S., largely from thin-film technology rather than the more common silicon panels.

The bigger question going forward is whether this recent surge holds up, since the U.S. has seen manufacturing booms before — including a thin-film investment wave in the late 2000s — that generated headlines but not lasting production. The next test will be whether new plants making the raw materials for silicon panels (cells, wafers, ingots) actually ramp up output, rather than just announcing capacity that never gets built.