Hanwha to build solar cell components plant in Georgia

South Korea’s Hanwha Advanced Materials Corp. will spend $147 million to build a solar panel components plant in the US state of Georgia, according to a Bloomberg report and industry sources on Friday.

The plant will be located within the solar panel production complex that Hanwha Q Cells Co. is building in Cartersville, Georgia, for $3 billion.

Hanwha Advanced, spun off from Hanwha Solutions Corp. last year, will supply EVA sheets used to protect solar cells and boost their durability. It plans to mass produce the solar cell components from mid-2024.

In January, Hanwha Solutions announced a plan to invest $3.2 billion to build the largest solar energy production hub in the US by next year, which would be the largest-ever sum for a company to pour into the US solar energy sector.

The new complex will cast ingots and manufacture wafers, cells and modules, the four phases of the solar value chain. They use polysilicon as a raw material.

In aggregate, Hanwha will have the capacity to generate 8.4 GW of electricity from sunlight by 2024.

Hanwha Solutions is the No. 1 solar module manufacturer in the US.

Write to Seo-Woo Chang at suwu@hankyung.com

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.