US thin-film cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar manufacturer First Solar has signed an agreement with renewable energy company Birch Creek Energy to supply 547MW of modules.
Under the agreement, First Solar will supply its Series 6 Plus bifacial thin-film PV modules to the St. Louis-based company. Birch Creek Energy said the modules will be deployed across its development pipeline in the US.
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First Solar’s manufacturing capacity reached 16.6GW as of the end of 2023, up from 9.8GW in 2022. Its US manufacturing plants added 3.2GW of annual capacity for the Series 7 modules, while Series 6 modules annual capacity reached 2.8GW.
The company produced 12.1GW of modules in 2023, up from 9.1GW in 2022. Its US manufacturing plants produced 4.4GW last year, an increase from the 2.6GW registered in 2022. International manufacturing plants excluding India produced 7.1GW of modules, up from 6.5GW in 2022.
More recently, First Solar, among other US-based solar manufacturers, has filed an antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) petition to the US Department of Commerce (DOC) and International Trade Commission (ITC), alleging “potentially illegal trade practices by Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam that are injuring the US solar industry”. The petition sought an investigation into the practices of solar manufacturers in the four named countries.
