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The $21 billion capex bill: analyzing the cost of the U.S. 100 GW module production milestone

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The $21 billion capex bill: analyzing the cost of the U.S. 100 GW module production milestone

The United States crossed 100 GWp-dc of cumulative solar PV module production during the second quarter of 2026, the subject of my recent article on pv magazine.

But how much did the United States spend on solar PV manufacturing capital expenditure (capex) to achieve this milestone?

Background research by the author – undertaken on the build up to the Solar Manufacturing USA 2026 conference in Austin Texas on 22-23 September 2026 – places this at about $21 billion of U.S. solar manufacturing capex. This covers a period of more than 50 years, going back to the commercial origins of U.S. solar PV manufacturing in the early 1970’s through to the end of Q2 2026, when the 100 GW cumulative production volume was achieved.

This $21 billion of cumulative capital deployed into U.S. solar PV manufacturing assets includes a wide range of spending outcomes: factories that succeeded, many that failed, and plenty of production equipment that never generated anything close to its intended purpose.

Manufacturing capex is defined as spending on factory buildings for commercial manufacturing operations, the related infrastructure and production equipment, and maintenance/upgrade spending. The analysis excludes R&D spending and its related infrastructure, and pilot lines.

I estimate First Solar’s domestic manufacturing capex allocations to represent about one-quarter of all U.S. PV manufacturing capex. This starts with the original Perrysburg, Ohio, factory to the recent Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina additions.

Therefore, by the end of Q2 2026, First Solar accounted for about one-quarter of cumulative manufacturing capex supported by about two-fifths of the cumulative module production in the United States , dating back to the starting point for the country’s solar manufacturing aspirations in the early 1970’s.


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