It’s difficult to ignore how the scenery changes when you drive west out of Columbia on a weekday afternoon. The fence lines are still swallowed by the kudzu. Every other exit is still anchored by the Waffle Houses. However, billboards in Laurens County begin to promote warehouse jobs rather than personal injury attorneys, and the new metal structures rising off the interstate don’t resemble anything the textile economy ever produced.
Here, the Atlanta-based solar manufacturer Suniva declared in April that it would invest $350 million in a new cell factory. More than 550 jobs are anticipated to be created when the plant opens in the second quarter of 2027. It will increase the company’s capacity from one gigawatt to 5.5 gigawatt, a tenfold increase that seems almost reckless at first. According to Matt Card, president of Suniva, demand simply exceeded the company’s capacity. When you listen to people in the industry, you get the impression that their own good fortune has taken them by surprise.
It’s important to keep in mind how peculiar this is. South Carolina was not at all a solar story ten years ago. In response to other states’ renewable energy mandates, utilities began constructing farms along rural highways after the legislature covertly removed restrictions that had made solar development all but impossible. They were noticed by people in the same way that you notice anything new on a familiar drive: with a hint of curiosity, then nothing. The manufacturing arrived later and more quickly than the farms.
Sunshine isn’t the cause. Arizona also receives a lot, but South Carolina does. The true motivator is policy, particularly federal regulations that deny clean energy tax credits to Chinese-owned factories and the businesses that purchase from them. Suddenly, solar cells made in the United States became valuable and rare, and the nation found that it produced very few of them. With only 3.2 gigawatts of cell capacity and 60 gigawatts of module capacity in the US, the majority of cells used to supply domestic panel factories are still transported by ship. The entire business case is that gap. It might be the foundation of the entire boom.
Who else has shown up is noteworthy. In the state, First Solar is constructing a 3.7-gigawatt module facility. Here, ES Foundry is already in operation. Although Qcells landed in Georgia, T1 in Texas, and Canadian Solar in Indiana, a disproportionate amount of the significant investment continues to concentrate in this one area of the Carolina upstate, the same area that used to spin cotton thread for the entire world before those jobs left for less expensive labor abroad. Locals there seem to sense a historical rhyme, but they don’t always express it verbally.
Not every indication is positive. As a reminder that announcements and ribbon-cutting are two different things, North Carolina has recorded the highest number of cancellations of announced clean energy manufacturing jobs since early 2025. Card claims that a significant portion of the new factory’s output through 2030 has already been pre-sold. This may seem comforting, but keep in mind that pre-sold contracts are contingent upon policies passing both the next and subsequent elections. It’s still unclear if this manufacturing boom will last or if it’s just a temporary subsidy.
It’s difficult to avoid feeling a subtle skepticism coexisting with the optimism as you watch this develop. The factories exist. These are actual jobs. In Laurens County, the trucks are already transporting dirt. However, the industry has been burned before. Due to low-cost imports, American cell production effectively went dark for years, and this industry has a short memory. For the time being, the contracts have been signed, the cranes are up, and a region of South Carolina that watched its industrial base deteriorate for decades is, most likely, rebuilding. No one seems eager to ask too loudly whether it lasts.
