Inside the vast Qcells factory in Cartersville, Georgia, workers — and a bevy of robots — move ultra-thin slices of polysilicon through a lengthy series of machines and chemical baths to get what are known as cells.
“The $2.5 billion, the 3.5 million gallons of water, the 90 megawatts of power, the 60 tons of chemicals on site, and all of the football fields worth of infrastructure you’ve seen is to arrive at this,” said Scott Bell of Qcells, holding up one of the paper-thin blue cells.
It’s the basic building block of a solar panel.
In June, the plant, about an hour northwest of Atlanta, began its expansion from assembling the major components of solar panels to bringing the whole production process under one roof. It’s a major milestone for the U.S. solar industry. China has dominated solar panel manufacturing since the 2010s, flooding the global market with far cheaper panels than anyone else could make. For a host of reasons — national se... Read more
