A solar manufacturing complex in Georgia may serve as the test case for whether President Joe Biden's climate law can boost the domestic supply chain for renewable energy — and even get buy-in from GOP-led states. South Korean company Hanwha Q Cells announced Tuesday that it’s investing $2.5 billion to build a plant near Cartersville, Ga., that will manufacture solar panels and their components, writes POLITICO’s E&E News reporter Scott Waldman. The company already has a plant in Dalton, Ga., that it plans to expand. If it all pans out, the facilities will supply 30 percent of the nation’s solar panels by 2027. That could be a game-changer for the U.S. solar industry, which largely relies on China for components. Biden is touting the investment as a “direct result” of last year's climate law, while White House adviser John Podesta called it Biden’s “vision come to life.” “A major global business chose America as the place to invest and to help build our clean energy future and create thousands of good-paying middle-class jobs in the process,” Podesta said. The company opened the Dalton manufacturing plant in 2019, its first in the United States, and had already announced an expansion of the site in 2021. With its new investment, Hanwha Q Cells expects to create 2,500 jobs and produce enough solar panels to support 8.4 gigawatts of power by 2024. That could ease a supply chain crunch that has already led to a slowing of solar panel installments. POLITICO reporter Kelsey Tamborrino writes that installments were down 17 percent in the third quarter of 2022 from the year before. As the Biden administration doles out the climate law’s tax credits, investments in the solar sector are also expected to continue to grow. Last month, a report from the American Clean Power Association tallied $40 billion in new clean energy investments since the law passed in August. What could go wrong? Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, praised the Hanwha Q Cells investment Tuesday, but his support doesn’t necessarily mean smooth sailing in the swing state. Just ask electric vehicle maker Rivian Automotive, which plans to invest $5 billion to build a plant in Georgia that would produce as many as 400,000 trucks a year. The factory, hailed by Kemp as an economic boon, has nevertheless become a divisive issue in the state.
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