Japanese solar brand Toyo Solar announced it is building a 1.5-GW HJT solar cell manufacturing facility co-located at its existing module assembly site in Houston, Texas. The new cell factory is expected to generate 400 manufacturing jobs. Toyo will invest $357 million into the site, which is expected to begin pilot production within 20 months.
Credit: Toyo Solar
Toyo, the parent company manufacturing VSUN-branded panels, currently operates facilities in Vietnam, Ethiopia and the United States. Toyo is one of the companies accused of circumventing AD/CVD orders by working in Ethiopia. That case has not yet been officially picked up by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, but it is already affecting global manufacturing plans.
“Expanding into domestic cell manufacturing is the natural next step in our commitment to creating an integrated onshore solar supply chain from polysilicon to panels,” said Takahiko Onozuka, Chairman and CEO of Toyo. “Co-locating 1.5 GW of HJT cell capacity at our Houston module site significantly optimizes our capital allocation and infrastructure spend.”
Toyo says its decision to build a domestic cell facility reflects the company’s commitment to directly support the U.S. manufacturing reshoring initiative while fully satisfying evolving FEOC compliance standards. The company is also relying on 45X production tax credits for the solar cell plant, which should represent an annual benefit of $60 million in incentives.
“The new cell plant reflects Toyo’s long-term strategy to build a fully FEOC-compliant domestic manufacturing platform focused on serving the needs of the U.S. utility-scale solar market,” said Rhone Resch, Toyo’s Chief Strategy Officer. “By producing premium solar products in the United States, we will be well positioned to meet the market’s evolving domestic content requirements while strengthening supply chain security and reliability. Looking ahead, we believe HJT is the optimal technology platform for integrating next-generation perovskite solar cells, which we expect will drive the next major advancement in solar conversion efficiency and support Toyo’s long-term technology roadmap.”
