Hardware Podcasts

Scaling America's domestic solar supply chain

Catalyst · 19 Mar 2026 · 40m

What this episode covers

Scott Moskowitz, VP of market strategy and public affairs at QCells and chair of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), discusses the challenges and progress of reshoring solar manufacturing to the United States. He explains that while module assembly and polysilicon production have been domesticated, the critical middle stages of wafer and cell manufacturing are only just beginning to scale, with companies like QCells and Hemlock Corning leading the charge. Moskowitz highlights that despite US modules costing roughly 30 cents per watt compared to 7-9 cents globally, high demand driven by data centers and AI load growth has made domestic production economically viable, though achieving global cost competitiveness remains a long-term goal requiring scale and policy continuity.

Most relevant to

companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
QCells, SEIA, First Solar, Hemlock Semiconductor, REC Silicon, Energy Impact Partners, GTM, EnergyHub, Uplight, Antenna Group, Latitude Media, Yingli, Trina, Suntech, LONGi, JA Solar
Also
Catalyst, IRA, 45X, Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, Sunshot

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