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US solar manufacturers have had their ups and downs since Bell Labs introduced the first practical silicon solar cell to the world in 1954. Lately it’s been more up than down, which is somewhat weird considering the fossil-friendly direction of federal energy policy during the Trump administration. Still, solar manufacturing is booming in the US, and the best is yet to come as new tandem silicon-perovskite solar cells hit the market.
Boom Times For Solar Manufacturing In The US
Although the global solar industry was born in the US — at the Bell Labs campus in Murray Hill, New Jersey, to be exact — domestic manufacturers faced stiff competition from overseas suppliers throughout the 20th century. By the turn of the 21st century, solar manufacturing was all but dead in the US.
Change came gradually then suddenly as Ernest Hemingway would say. Last year turned out to be a banner year for domestic solar manufacturing in the US, in spite of the sharp U-turn in federal energy policy.
On October 29, the US trade organization the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) reported that 65 new or expanded solar and energy storage factories were already commissioned in 2025, with a consequent increase in output. “As of October 2025, the United States has surpassed 60 gigawatts (GW) of domestic solar module production capacity, a 37% increase from December 2024,” SEIA observed.
According to SEIA, domestic solar cell production capacity also more than tripled, rising from 1 gigawatt at the end of 2024 to 3.2 gigawatts by October.
SEIA additionally noted that the entire solar supply chain has been re-shored, enabling manufacturers to comply with new domestic content rules. “With the news of Corning’s new ingot and wafer facility coming online in Q3, the United States now has the capacity to produce every major component of the solar supply chain,” SEIA emphasized.
It’s A Perfect Time To Make Perovskite Solar Cells In The US
On the down side, SEIA advised that a pipeline of more than 100 additional factories would be at risk under a worst-case scenario for federal energy policy.
That remains to be seen. However, Trump’s war in Iran has certainly made the case for solar power more powerful than it already is. The war has spiked the cost of fossil fuels for power generation and building systems in addition to pushing up the price of transportation fuels. For that matter, the president himself has reportedly greenlit several new solar projects in Nevada that were previously put on hold by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
Besides, an even stronger case for solar power can be made as new, more efficient solar cells hit the market. In particular, attention has been focusing on the ability of a new material, perovskite, to help bring down the cost of silicon solar cells while boosting solar conversion efficiency (see lots more perovskite background here).
Those efficiency gains are important because they enable developers to squeeze more clean kilowatts from less space, helping to alleviate land use conflicts while providing more opportunities for rooftop solar.
As If On Cue …
Tandem perovskite solar cells have yet to gain a foothold in the mass market, but the day is coming soon. Earlier today the US startup Swift Solar announced that it is jumping to the front of the queue by snapping up the core intellectual property and manufacturing assets of the bankrupt German solar cell manufacturer Meyer Burger.
No word yet on where and how Swift expects to make use of the physical assets, but the company expects that Meyer Burger’s expertise in silicon solar cell manufacturing will provide it with a running start on producing tandem silicon-perovskite solar cells in the US.
“This acquisition puts Swift Solar on track to speed-run gigawatt-scale solar manufacturing in the United States. Everything is pointing in the same direction—tax credits, tariffs, supply chain reshoring, AI. The US needs more solar, and we need it built here,” Swift CEO and co-founder Joel Jean wrote in a blog post.
“We spent years figuring out if perovskites could work at scale, pushing boundaries in the lab, and trying to convince skeptical investors—who previously burned their hands on thin-film solar—that this time around, the physics was actually different,” Jean elaborated.
“Now it’s happening,” he emphasized.
For those of you unfamiliar with perovskite solar cells and their significance in the energy transition, Jean also provided a handy explainer on the blog:
Today’s silicon solar cells are approaching a hard ceiling on efficiency around 30%. Our perovskite-silicon tandem technology breaks through that ceiling by stacking a new semiconductor on top of silicon to capture light that silicon wastes.
More Tandem Silicon-Perovskite Solar Cells For The USA
Don’t get too excited just yet. As a first step, Swift plans to set up a gigawatt-scale silicon solar cell and module manufacturing facility at a US location to be determined. The same factory will eventually house the second step, a tandem perovskite solar cell operation.
Jean did not give out any particulars regarding the timeline for either step, though the company’s recent history indicates that perovskites could come sooner rather than later. Swift’s tandem solar cells played a featured role in a portable microgrid as part of a Defense Department cybersecurity exercise in Virginia last summer. After the exercise, Swift received a big thumbs-up from a DoD cybersecurity expert, who said, “US-made perovskite solar technology can directly address the growing power demands of the modern battlefield and enhance overall military readiness.”
In addition to Swift Solar, keep your eyes on another up-and-comer in the field, the startup Tandem PV. The company earned a thumbs-up of its own after former US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm paid a visit to their facility last fall. Granholm noted that the company is already on track to produce solar panels that are 30% more efficient than the average solar panel of today, providing a significant new opportunity to use less land for more clean kilowatts. As Granholm observed, the land savings ripples from a lower cost for site acquisition into lower costs for site preparation and maintenance, too. The high-efficiency solar panels also provide farmers with new opportunities to deploy agrivoltaic projects that balance solar power and food production on the same land.
The New Mexico firm UbiQD is yet another perovskite-enabled startup at work in the US. When CleanTechnica caught up with them about a year ago, UbiQD had just purchased the firm BlueDot along with its system for manufacturing perovskite solar cells. Last November, UbiQD also nailed down a $6 million a debt financing agreement with Silicon Valley Bank.
“This capital will fund strategic infrastructure investments including facility upgrades and specialized manufacturing equipment, supporting UbiQD’s scale-up in response to new commercial demand,” UbiQD reported, so stay tuned for more news on that.
Photo: Solar cell manufacturing assets and intellectual property from a bankrupt German firm will fuel the growth of a silicon-perovskite solar cell startup in the US (courtesy of Swift Solar via email/dropbox).
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