The United States towards energy autarchy and the fight against climate change thanks to solar power. This is the future imagined by First Solar Inc, which saw room for growth in Biden’s plans. The new administration, in fact, aims to make the entire US electricity grid carbon free by 2035, and to do so, it requires the support of strictly stars and stripes companies with the dual purpose of achieving a certain autonomy and creating wealth and jobs at home. This means fighting the Chinese hegemony, which dominates the solar panel production market, and mark the pace of an all-American transition. Backed by these government plans, First Solar Inc. has just committed to building a $ 680 million panel factory in Ohio. The company is among the top 10 largest solar energy producers in the world, the only one with headquarters in the United States, and plants, as well as in the USA, also in Vietnam and Malaysia.
Solar is not explicitly included among the sectors the government wants to push (which are pharmaceuticals, minerals, semiconductors and innovative batteries), but it certainly has the power and numbers to lobby. The Biden administration is already considering increasing incentives for panel purchases and tax breaks for domestic manufacturers which would make import technologies less convenient. In this the CEO Mark Widmar it was clear. In an interview with CNN he did not say he was concerned about Trump’s removal of tariffs on Chinese imports: “We are absolutely competitive and able to withstand the competition,” he said, but he did not hesitate to send a message to the new administration: “Our intention is to go even further, but only with reforms and the support given by fair taxation behind us. They are among the factors that we will take into consideration to make an informed decision on whether we intend to expand further in the United States or not ”.
The new factory will create 500 new jobs, and will produce higher efficiency modules, more competitive and designed to lower the cost per watt of solar energy. The forecast is the production of a module every three seconds, thanks to a plant that exploits high levels of automation, with artificial intelligence, machine learning and integrated communication technologies. Widmar wanted to reiterate it: “Our technology is not even in the slightest dependent on China, because we have been working on innovation for twenty years and have differentiated methods and materials ”. And First Solar is careful to highlight how its production of panels differs from the oriental one also in ecological terms: “We base our premises on the circular economy, using copper and zinc by-products and recovering 90% of the materials and 100% of semiconductors when a panel reaches the end of its life “. In the future of First Solar there are not only panels. Also questioned by CNN, the CEO winked at cryptocurrencies: “We supply many data centers with green energy, I don’t see why not to do the same with bitcoin mining to make it sustainable “he said.