Meyer Burger says it may start manufacturing solar cells in the U.S. and is now in talks with Sunrun and Sunnova
Meyer Burger is researching ways to make solar cells in the US. In an interview with the investment company Roth MKM, the company’s CEO Gunter Erfurt stated that its interest in domestic production had increased significantly due to the new domestic content requirement.
The company said it plans to manufacture 2 GW of solar cells per year for Goodyear’s Arizona factory at its current factory locations in Germany. Erfurt announced that Meyer Burger had secured enough production space in Germany’s “Valley of the Sun” to reach up to 15 GW of annual production capacity.
However, after the Internal Revenue Service’s domestic content guidelines were announced on May 12, the company began looking for space to manufacture solar cells near the Arizona facility. Erfurt stated that while there is no specific timeline, the sooner they begin production in the United States, the better.
When Phillip Shen Roth of MKM asked if Meyer Burger believed it could meet the 40 percent domestic content requirement by using domestically produced solar cells in its modules, Erfurt confirmed it.
Meyer Burger contacted the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Loan Programs. Erfurt noted that the DOE’s goal is to promote solar cell manufacturing and possibly finance the construction of a solar cell facility.
Meyer Burger currently manufactures around 800,000 solar cells per day, which fills around 6,000 solar modules. Once the company completes its 1.4GW annual expansion, it will reach a capacity of about 10,000 modules per day.
According to Erfurt, the company has sufficient resources to meet its 3.4 GW production capacity target, which includes the aforementioned 2 GW of solar cell manufacturing needed in the near future.
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