Statement from Mike Carr, Executive Director of the Solar Energy Manufacturers for America (SEMA) Coalition

Washington, D.C. - "The Solar Energy Manufacturers for America (SEMA) Coalition applauds CubicPV for bringing the first global-scale wafer manufacturing facility to the United States. Their planned 10 Gigawatt facility to manufacture conventional mono wafers will serve as a major catalyst in our efforts to create a fully American solar supply chain.

These wafers are a critical ingredient to reshore the full solar supply chain. The lack of domestic wafer capacity has been a primary barrier to domestic manufacturing of other critical components, such as polysilicon and cells needed for fully American crystalline silicon solar panels. Now that vision is one big step closer to reality. For years, American polysilicon manufacturing has been hampered due to China’s monopoly of the wafer market. By bringing wafer production to U.S. soil, polysilicon producers can restart and even expand production to serve the growing domestic market.

The SEMA Coalition members told Congress that if they got the right policy support, they would build a strong, secure, and resilient solar manufacturing supply chain – from polysilicon through module manufacturing – to meet our current and future deployment needs, achieve our ambitious climate goals, and create manufacturing jobs across the country. Today’s announcement is proof that the Inflation Reduction Act is working, and we know many more such announcements will follow."

- Mike Carr, Executive Director of the SEMA Coalition