First Solar, Inc., on Friday, inaugurated its new fully vertically integrated manufacturing facility in Iberia Parish.
The $1.1 billion facility, spanning 2.4 million square feet and about 11 times the size of the New Orleans Superdome, currently employs more than 700 people and is expected to have 826 employees by the end of the year, according to the Louisiana Economic Development (LED). Once fully ramped, the Iberia Parish facility is expected to add 3.5 gigawatts (GW) of annual nameplate capacity, taking First Solar's American manufacturing footprint to 14 GW in 2026, and 17.7 GW in 2027, when a recently announced production facility in South Carolina is expected to be fully ramped.
According to an economic impact analysis conducted by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and commissioned by the Iberia Economic Development Authority (IEDA) the new facility is forecast to grow Iberia Parish’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 4.4% in its first full year of operations at capacity. Manufacturing roles at the facility offer an average compensation package of $90,000 per year, according to LED.
The high-tech factory is enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), which uses computer vision and deep learning to automatically detect defects in solar panels during production. At the same time, technicians and operators leverage AI-powered tools to make operational adjustments and guide decision-making.
The Louisiana facility is part of what is already the largest solar technology manufacturing and research and development (R&D) footprint in the Western Hemisphere and includes three fully vertically integrated manufacturing facilities in Ohio, and one in Alabama, along with R&D centers in Ohio and California. Last week, the Company announced an investment in a new production line in Gaffney, South Carolina, to onshore final production processes for Series 6 modules initiated by its international fleet, according to LED. Altogether, the Company, which expects to directly employ over 5,500 people in the US by the end of 2026, will have invested approximately $4.5 billion in American manufacturing and R&D infrastructure since 2019.
