Planned factories are concentrated in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, with some also coming to Ohio and solar giant Texas.
South Carolina, for example, advertises itself as an EV industry destination, in part because of the 75,000 people already employed in the automotive industry in the state.
The geographic proximity of these facilities will likely yield other benefits, such as cheaper transportation from manufacturing sites to assembly plants.
Impressive as this state-spanning explosion in clean energy manufacturing may be, it’s not happening without some serious help from abroad.
That’s because South Korea is one of only three countries with mature battery-manufacturing sectors, China and Japan being the others.
China-based Longi and U.S.-based Invenergy announced a plant in Ohio that they claim ultimately will be the largest U.S. solar manufacturing facility.
Most of the facilities aiming for 2025 or later are big-money battery plants, such as LG Energy Solution’s $5.5 billion Arizona factory. »