Translucent Solar to Begin Solar Panel Assembly in South Carolina
Key Takeaways
- •The Summerville, South Carolina facility is scheduled to begin production and reach 1.2 GW of annual capacity by year-end.
- •The plant will manufacture solar panels for utility-scale, commercial and residential markets.
- •The first phase of the project involves a $15.6 million investment and is expected to support 167 jobs.
- •Translucent Solar said the South Carolina site is the first stage of a multi-year U.S. expansion plan that may include cell and wafer manufacturing.
- •The company previously announced a U.S. manufacturing relationship with Philadelphia Solar in 2022, but those plans were not finalized.
Translucent Solar announced it will begin production at a solar panel assembly facility in Summerville, South Carolina. The site is expected to reach its 1.2-GW annual manufacturing capacity by the end of the year.
The company said it will produce panels for all markets — utility-scale, commercial and residential. The 281,000-ft² South Carolina plant is part of a "$15.6 million first-phase investment" and will support 167 jobs. The project joins a broader expansion of U.S. solar manufacturing that accelerated after the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 established production tax credits for domestically made clean energy components.
"Summerville is the first step in our multi-year plan, and we intend to expand into U.S. cell and wafer manufacturing in the near future," said Augustus Rylands, managing director of Translucent Solar, in a press release. Moving into cell and wafer production would take the company deeper into a supply chain where U.S. capacity remains concentrated in module assembly — generally the least capital-intensive stage, which typically assembles imported cells into finished panels.
Translucent Solar has sought a role in U.S. panel manufacturing for some time. The company first announced a relationship with Philadelphia Solar in 2022 to make panels somewhere in the United States, but those plans were never finalized. That earlier announcement came amid a proliferation of new U.S. module plant proposals, and not every announced facility has reached production.
Several executives with Translucent Solar have previous affiliations with Desert Technologies, a Saudi energy developer and solar panel manufacturer, including managing directors Rylands and Nour Mousa. Nabih Cherradi is listed as chief technology officer of both Desert Technologies and Translucent Solar.
