First Solar Completes $1.1B US Manufacturing Expansion With Alabama and Louisiana Plants

First Solar has completed a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar expansion of its US manufacturing footprint, capping the effort with the November 20, 2025 inauguration of a $1.1 billion AI-enabled factory in Iberia Parish, Louisiana. The Louisiana plant follows the September 26, 2024 opening of a nearly identical $1.1 billion facility in Lawrence County, Alabama, together adding roughly 7 gigawatts of annual nameplate capacity to the company's domestic production.

The Alabama factory, First Solar's fourth US facility overall, contributes 3.5 GW of annual capacity and generated more than 800 direct manufacturing jobs in Lawrence County. It produces the company's thin-film Series 7 modules using steel that is sourced, smelted, rolled, and fabricated entirely within a 25-mile radius of the plant — a supply-chain story the company has leaned on as a selling point for buyers seeking domestic content.

The Louisiana facility, located in New Iberia, is also rated at 3.5 GW per year and spans approximately 2.4 million square feet — First Solar describes it as roughly 11 times the footprint of the Superdome. Production began in July 2025, several months ahead of schedule, and the plant employed more than 700 workers at the time of its ribbon cutting, with headcount projected to reach about 826 by year-end. A University of Louisiana at Lafayette economic impact analysis projects the factory will lift Iberia Parish's GDP by 4.4% in its first full year at capacity.

Taken together, the two Gulf Coast plants push First Solar's US nameplate capacity to roughly 11 GW per year and bring the company's cumulative American manufacturing and R&D investment since 2019 to about $4.5 billion. First Solar has said it expects to employ more than 5,500 people in the United States by the end of 2026. While this is manufacturing investment rather than a consumer rebate program, the expansion matters for US homeowners and installers: a deeper pool of domestically produced thin-film modules helps installers meet federal domestic-content bonus requirements tied to the Inflation Reduction Act's residential and commercial solar tax credits, which can improve project economics on rooftop systems.