On May 8, SPI Energy announced the latest expansion activities of its wholly owned subsidiaries SEM Wafertech and Solar4America. The planned production capacity of SEM Wafertech’s new PV wafer manufacturing plant has been raised to 3GW per year, whereas the planned production capacity of Solar4America’s new PV module manufacturing plant has been raised to 2.4GW per year. Headquartered in California, SPI Energy focuses on PV solutions for a wide range of applications. This announcement was first picked up by other news outlets.
Earlier on April 26, SPI Energy disclosed that it had leased a facility in South Carolina to support the capacity expansion activities of its subsidiaries. SPI Energy also stated that it will be investing more than USD 65 million to pursue vertical integration and form its own industry chain for PV products.
According to SPI Energy, the new facility, together with the new equipment that it will be deploying, will allow it to meet the growing demand in the US for PV wafers. The company now aims to output its batch of domestically manufactured wafer by the end of this year. Furthermore, its target for wafer production capacity is set at 3GW per year by the end of 2024.
The new facility in South Carolina will also have the capability to meet a variety of specification demands from customers in the PV module market. The module capacity target is set at 2.4GW per year by the end of this year. Additionally, the investment in these expansion activities will also generate 300 new jobs.
The creation of these new jobs and the development of the project as a whole is supported by the Coordinating Council for Economic Development of South Carolina. Specifically, the council already awarded SPI Energy a USD 1.5 million grant that comes from the Rural Infrastructure Fund. This amount will cover a part of the costs of the building of the infrastructure and improvements related to the local wastewater treatment system. Besides this, the council also approved a job development credits for the project.