New Solar Industry Consortium Pledges $6B For US Manufactured Solar Panels

A quartet of leading U.S. solar companies has created a consortium designed to encourage domestic manufacturing of solar panels.

What Happened: The AES Corporation AES, Clearway Energy Group, Cypress Creek Renewables and D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments have created the U.S. Solar Buyer Consortium and announced an initial goal of purchasing more than $6 billion of solar panels made in the U.S.

The consortium also said it was seeking out U.S. manufacturers that could supply up to 7 GW of solar modules per year starting from 2024. The consortium also identified the expansion of the U.S. solar industry as one of its goals, citing research that determined the solar industry could potentially account for 40% of the nation's energy and while employing as many as 1.5 million people in jobs by 2035.

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Why It Happened: The consortium’s formation and call for more domestic manufacturing comes at a time when U.S. energy security has been hampered by rising oil prices and supply chain disruptions of materials from competing nations. The majority of solar panels installed in the U.S. derive from Asia.

"With our large and growing pipeline of solar projects, AES is fully committed to accelerating America's transition to clean energy," said Andrés Gluski, AES president and CEO.

"Today, some of America's top solar developers have come together to do our part to help attract investments into US solar manufacturing. It is crucial, however, that the U.S. government creates a realistic, long-term policy framework that supports onshoring more of our solar panel supply chain without unnecessarily disrupting the growth and success of our sector."

Photo: Sebastian Ganso/Pixabay.