zlacker

US domestic PV module manufacturing capacity is ~40GW/year.

>>toomuc+(OP)
According to [1], the USA in January 2025 has almost 50GW/yr module manufacturing capacity. But to make modules you need polysilicon (25GW/yr manufacturing capacity in the US), ingots (0GW/yr), wafers (0GW/yr), and cells (0GW/yr). Hence the USA is seemingly entirely dependent on imports, probably from China which has 95%+ of the global wafer manufacturing capacity.

Even when accounting for announced capacity expansion, the USA is currently on target to remain a very small player in the global market with announced capacity of 33GW/yr polysilicon, 13GW/yr ingots, 24GW/yr wafers, 49GW/yr cells and 83GW/yr modules (13GW/yr sovereign supply chain limitation).

In 2024, China completed sovereign manufacturing of ~540GW of modules[2] including all precursor polysilicon, ingots, wafers and cells. China also produced and exported polysilicon, ingots, wagers and cells that were surplus to domestic demand. Many factories in China's production chain are operating at half their maximum production capacity due to global demand being less than half of global manufacturing capacity.[3]

[1] https://seia.org/research-resources/solar-storage-supply-cha...

[2] Estimated figure extrapolated from Jan-Oct 2024 data (10 months). https://taiyangnews.info/markets/china-solar-pv-output-10m-2...

[3] https://dialogue.earth/en/business/chinese-solar-manufacture...

>>dhx+UU
Appreciate the correction and additional context, I appear to be behind wrt current state.