News: Photovoltaics
30 July 2026
First Solar issues 2026 Corporate Responsibility Report
Cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film photovoltaic (PV) module maker First Solar Inc of Tempe, AZ, USA has issued its 2026 Corporate Responsibility Report, detailing how it creates enduring value by developing, sourcing, manufacturing and recycling solar domestically, supporting jobs and communities, strengthening industrial capacity, and helping to ensure that the benefits are realized locally.
Responsibility is “embedded in how we operate, built into every stage of how we source, manufacture and recycle American solar,” says Samantha Sloan, executive VP of corporate affairs. “That is what allows us to build value by creating jobs and industrial capacity while strengthening energy and supply chain security.”
Highlights from the report include:
- The scale and durability of a genuinely domestic manufacturing footprint: First Solar’s impact is reflected in its economic footprint. A study commissioned by First Solar and conducted by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, released in March, found that the firm supported nearly 30,000 estimated American jobs and $3bn in labor income in 2025, while contributing an estimated $5.8bn to US gross domestic product. The analysis projects that by 2027 it will support more than 39,000 jobs and $4bn in labor income, reflected in paychecks, regional economic growth, and the development of communities where First Solar operates.
- Technology that is responsible by design: First Solar owns its intellectual property and controls its manufacturing processes, giving it the freedom to operate and enabling end-to-end traceability and product security. Its products are designed to be secure, traceable, recyclable and reliable over decades of operation. Reflecting its conviction that how something is made matters, the firm’s thin-film manufacturing requires less energy, water and chemical intensity than conventional crystalline silicon (c-Si) production, including up to 50 times less chemical and gas intensity, as it continues to improve resource efficiency while scaling responsibly.
- Domestic capacity that supports reindustrialization: First Solar exited 2025 with almost 13GW of US nameplate capacity, scaling toward about 17GW by 2027. This fully vertically integrated capacity relies on US value chains for raw materials, including glass and steel, anchoring domestic-content capability, supply chain resilience, and a scale that is difficult to replicate. By the end of 2026, the firm expects to have invested over $5bn in American manufacturing and R&D infrastructure since 2019.
- Industrial value retention at scale: First Solar says it is the only solar manufacturer with more than 20 years of experience operating global, in-house PV recycling facilities, achieving an average material recovery rate of more than 95% in 2025. Its high-value recycling recovers critical materials such as tellurium and returns glass, steel and aluminium to domestic industrial supply chains, keeping strategic materials in productive use and retaining industrial value at home rather than sending it overseas or to landfill.
“When solar is made this way, the result is tangible,” says Sloan. “It enables good-paying jobs, revitalized communities, and strategic industries, while delivering the reliable, affordable power that families and businesses depend on.”
First Solar’s US GDP contribution to grow from $5.8bn in 2025 to $7.8bn in 2027
