Mission Solar expands San Antonio factory to 1 gigawatt
One of a just a handful of American solar panel manufacturers, Texas-based mission solar announced a 700 MW expansion of its factory.
Mission Solar Energy, a solar panel manufacturer based in San Antonio, Texas, shared news last week that it will soon expand its manufacturing capacity.
The factory, which is colocated with Mission Solar’s headquarters in south San Antonio, will be adding 300 megawatts of manufacturing capacity immediately. Given that Mission’s highest output solar panel is 375 watts, that works out to about 800,000 panels annually. The factory currently has a capacity of 300 MW, so that means the company is immediately working on doubling the capacity of its 246,000-square-foot factory.
According to My San Antonio, the company will be converting existing storage space to enable the expansion. As part of this first phase of the expansion, the company hopes to hire over 30 people.
The first phase of the expansion will begin in the fourth quarter of 2022. A second phase will expand the facility to over 300 employees a total of 1 gigawatt, which works out to about 2.7 million solar panels annually. The start date of the 2nd phase hasn’t been specified yet.
Mission Solar has been based in San Antonio for over a decade, but is actually a U.S. subsidiary of OCI Company Ltd, which is based in Seoul, South Korea-based. OCI supplies the polysilicon that Mission uses in its solar panels.
Mission Solar’s factory expansion was assisted by the Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit in Inflation Reduction Act, which provides tax credits for solar polysilicon, wafers, cells, modules, backsheets, and other solar panel components.
Mission Solar makes high efficiency solar panels that come in all-black versions. Their panels use half-cut and PERC technology to reach a maximum of 20.59% efficiency and 375 watts of output.
