First Solar Statement on Domestic Content Guidance
January 16, 2025
The latest guidelines issued by the Biden administration disappointingly undermine the legislative intent of the domestic content bonus by effectively eliminating technology neutrality. Congress intended to incentivize demand for all American-made solar panels produced with American materials and create the conditions necessary to unleash the country's solar innovation, manufacturing, and supply chain potential. While we applaud the effort to support US wafer production, it's unfortunate that the guidance favors crystalline silicon—a technology and supply chain dominated by China—over uniquely American thin film technologies, widely used to power our nation's utility-scale solar fleet and universally agreed to be the future of PV when novel thin films like perovskites are matured and scaled. In doing so, the administration is ceding the future of PV innovation to an adversary and has prioritized deepening our nation's dependence on Chinese solar intellectual property. There should be no room for politics to decide the winners and losers in the solar energy technology race that we're locked in with China.
