{"id":3982,"date":"2026-04-16T03:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T03:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/?p=3982"},"modified":"2026-04-19T21:50:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T21:50:46","slug":"over-500-jobs-to-be-created-at-new-solar-cell-manufacturing-facility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/?p=3982","title":{"rendered":"Over 500 Jobs To Be Created At New Solar Cell Manufacturing Facility"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<hr\/>\n<p><strong><em>Support CleanTechnica&#8217;s work through <a href=\"https:\/\/cleantechnica.substack.com\/subscribe\" target=\"_blank\">a Substack subscription<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/cleantechnica.fundjournalism.org\/contribute\/\" target=\"_blank\">on Stripe<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">Georgia-based Suniva, Inc. plans to open a new solar cell manufacturing facility in Laurens, South Carolina. The investment will support the creation of about 564 new jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">\u201cSouth Carolina already has a very rich history in advanced manufacturing. This is the next evolution for South Carolina, which is the next generation of advanced manufacturing [and] renewable energy. As we go through this AI boom and the creation of data centers everywhere, we need to respond as a society to electrical generation needs and develop electricity quickly,\u201d Suniva president Matt <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">Card <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wspa.com\/news\/solar-cell-maker-expansion-to-bring-500-new-jobs-to-upstate\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">said<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">He also said the new manufacturing facility will produce 4.5 gigawatts of solar cells per year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">Data centers and ones driven by the AI boom consume a great deal of electricity, so more power generation is needed. While tech companies don\u2019t appear to be the most intentional, vocal leaders in the clean, renewable energy space, when they choose solar power and wind power, and perhaps even a bit of geothermal power, they are driving greater clean energy expansion. Solar power plants can be built more quickly and cheaply than new coal and natural gas power plants. New nuclear power tends to be far more expensive and much slower to build. Coal and natural gas combustion generates toxic air pollution that harms human health and the planet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">When describing the overall trend of increasing electricity use, Card made an important point about <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wspa.com\/news\/solar-cell-maker-expansion-to-bring-500-new-jobs-to-upstate\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">energy independence<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">: \u2018The country continues to use more and more energy , that\u2019s a fact no matter how that\u2019s being deployed. Whether it\u2019s to power our cell phones, our cars, homes or businesses, or data centers, we need more. The country needs to be energy independent, and we need to protect our domestic energy security.\u201d<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400 ,\">What was not mentioned are the environmental benefits investing in solar power has. This absence might be deliberate because in a variety of business contexts the environment is not something some business people want to talk about openly or frequently.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"afterpost\">\n<hr\/>\n<p><em>Sign up for <a href=\"https:\/\/cleantechnica.substack.com\/subscribe\" target=\"_blank\">CleanTechnica&#8217;s Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott&#8217;s in-depth analyses and high level summaries<\/a>, sign up for <a href=\"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/cleantechnica\/daily-newsletter\">our daily newsletter<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqLQgKIidDQklTRndnTWFoTUtFV05zWldGdWRHVmphRzVwWTJFdVkyOXRLQUFQAQ\">follow us on Google News<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><center><bold>Advertisement<\/bold><\/center><\/p>\n<p><center><!-- CT new after-post --><\/p>\n<p><\/center>\u00a0<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><em>Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? 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Georgia-based Suniva, Inc. plans to open a new solar cell manufacturing facility in Laurens, South Carolina. The investment will support the creation of about 564 new jobs. \u201cSouth Carolina already has a very rich history in advanced manufacturing. This is the next evolution for South [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[950,951],"class_list":["post-3982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-renewable-energy","tag-south-carolina","tag-suniva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3982"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3984,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3982\/revisions\/3984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}