News: Photovoltaics
24 November 2025
First Solar inaugurates $1.1bn AI-enabled Louisiana manufacturing facility
Cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film photovoltaic (PV) module maker First Solar Inc of Tempe, AZ, USA has inaugurated its new fully vertically integrated manufacturing facility in Iberia Parish, Louisiana. The $1.1bn facility, which spans about 2.4 million square feet and is about 11 times the size of the New Orleans Superdome, currently employs over 700 people and is expected to have 826 staff by the end of the year. Once fully ramped, it is expected to add 3.5GW of annual nameplate capacity, taking First Solar’s American manufacturing footprint to 14GW in 2026, and 17.7GW in 2027, when a recently announced production facility in South Carolina is expected to be fully ramped.
Picture: First Solars new fully vertically integrated manufacturing facility in Iberia Parish, Louisiana.
The Iberia Parish facility began production in July, several months ahead of schedule. The accelerated timeline is said to have been driven by the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the Trump administration’s trade policies, both of which catalyzed demand for American-made solar technology that is fully compliant with anticipated Foreign Entities of Concern (FEOC) guidance. The facility, which has no dependencies on Chinese crystalline silicon supply chains, produces First Solar’s Series 7 modules using American materials including glass from Illinois and Ohio, and steel produced in Mississippi and fabricated into backrails in Louisiana.
“First Solar’s investment is already delivering real results for Iberia Parish and the surrounding region with hundreds of good-paying jobs and new opportunities for Louisiana workers and businesses,” says Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry.
According to an economic impact analysis conducted by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and commissioned by the Iberia Economic Development Authority (IEDA), the new facility is forecast to grow Iberia Parish’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 4.4% in its first full year of operations at capacity. Manufacturing roles at the facility offer an average compensation package of $90,000 per year, more than three times the per capita income in Iberia Parish.
The factory is enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), using computer vision and deep learning to automatically detect defects in solar panels during production, while technicians and operators leverage AI-powered tools to make operating adjustments and guide decision making.
“Along with its sister facilities in Ohio and Alabama, this factory demonstrates how AI can be harnessed to help American factory workers reach their full potential,” says chief manufacturing officer Kuntal Kumar Verma. “Our fleet offers proof that AI can help realize productivity gains that allow us to out-innovate the competition and run our operations smarter, better, and faster.”
The Louisiana facility is part of what is already the largest solar technology manufacturing and R&D footprint in the Western Hemisphere and includes three fully vertically integrated manufacturing facilities in Ohio, and one in Alabama, along with R&D centers in Ohio and California. On 14 November, the firm announced an investment in a new production line in Gaffney, South Carolina, to onshore final production processes for Series 6 modules initiated by its international fleet. Altogether, the firm, which expects to directly employ over 5500 people in the USA by the end of 2026, will have invested about $4.5bn in American manufacturing and R&D infrastructure since 2019.
Having manufactured in the USA since 2002, First Solar is the country’s leading PV solar technology and manufacturing company and the only one of the world’s largest solar manufacturers to be headquartered in the USA. By 2027, the firm expects to support over 30,000 direct, indirect, and induced jobs across the country, estimated to represent more than $3bn in labor income.
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