How many solar panels the United States makes has climbed to 70 gigawatts a year, up more than 750%

How many solar panels the United States makes has never grown faster. National solar module manufacturing capacity, the amount of finished solar panels factories in the country can turn out in a year, reached nearly 70 gigawatts by June 2026, The Cool Down reports, up more than 750% from an earlier total of roughly 8 gigawatts. The jump traces to a specific federal incentive, the manufacturing tax credit the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 created, which pays a factory for every solar cell or panel it makes and sells inside the United States, and to a wave of new factories the credit has helped finance in Texas, Georgia, Indiana and South Carolina.

The growth in how many solar panels the United States makes

Canary Media, a separate news outlet, had already put the same national measure at almost 65 gigawatts in January 2026, 5 months earlier, confirming a continuing climb rather than 2 outlets disagreeing about the same moment. National solar cell production capacity, the ability to turn raw silicon into the finished cells a panel is built from, was just 3.2 gigawatts then, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association as reported by Canary Media. Comparing that figure with the panel number above, a comparison this article makes, the country can now assemble finished panels at close to 20 times the rate it can make the cells that go inside them.

The factories behind the number

A 3.3 gigawatt Qcells facility in Cartersville, Georgia anchors much of the growth. The United States Department of Energy Loan Programs Office backed it with a 1.45 billion dollar loan guarantee, calling it the first fully integrated silicon based solar manufacturing facility built in the country in more than a decade, expected to support approximately 1,200 construction jobs and 1,650 permanent operating jobs. The Georgia Department of Economic Development independently confirmed the same 3.3 gigawatt figure 2 years earlier. That same federal loan office also promotes a far larger number, more than 335 gigawatts of solar supply chain manufacturing capacity announced nationwide since the Inflation Reduction Act passed. Reading that announcement directly shows the bigger figure counts announced plans across polysilicon, wafers, cells and modules together, not finished panel factories running today, a different measure this article does not add to the 70 gigawatt figure above.

T1 Energy runs 2 Texas facilities feeding the same national total, a 5 gigawatt a year module plant in the Dallas area that produced 935 megawatts of panels in the second quarter of 2026 alone, and a second facility in Rockdale being built to add 2.1 gigawatts of cell capacity, with cell production expected to start in the first quarter of 2027.

This is the year of execution for us.

Russell Gold, executive vice president for strategic communications at T1 Energy. Source 2.

Why cell capacity still lags

Turning raw silicon into a finished solar cell remains the hardest step to bring home. First Solar already runs 14 gigawatts of combined panel capacity across Alabama, Louisiana and Ohio, with a South Carolina site under development, using thin film technology that skips the silicon cell step entirely. Heliene Solar chief executive Martin Pochtaruk says the country could go further even without that shortcut.

Except for the glass, everything we have in the module could be domestic, should the client choose that.

Martin Pochtaruk, chief executive of Heliene Solar. Source 2.

A fourth factory helps fill out the picture. A Translucent Solar factory in Summerville, South Carolina is expected to add 1.2 gigawatts of its own capacity by the end of 2026 and support 167 jobs, The Cool Down reports, 1 more plant in a build out that keeps climbing month by month.