A recent article in Electrek announced the large U.S. investment in thin-film PV solar panels. The solar energy industry has been experiencing a significant shift as companies ramp up efforts to meet the growing demand for clean, renewable energy. Prices are coming down and as a small piece of that larger picture: First Solar has just opened a massive, state-of-the-art factory in Lawrence County, Alabama, marking a crucial milestone for both the company (and solar energy generation). This is also remarkable in the United States as the new First Solar plant is:

..a fully vertically integrated manufacturer of thin-film PV solar panels. This means they can turn a sheet of glass into a functional solar panel in about four hours, relying heavily on US-sourced materials like glass and steel, the latter of which is being sourced within a 25-mile radius of the new factory.

The Lawrence County factory, along with First Solar’s three operating factories in Ohio, brings the company’s domestic nameplate manufacturing capacity to almost 11 GW and its global capacity to over 21 GW, once fully online.

Right now China is leading the charge on solar energy production (and likely will for some time) but efforts like this may yet show that the U.S. still has capability in this field.

Read the whole article here.