Dive Brief:
- Tesla, Inc. has proposed to invest $10.1 billion in a solar cell manufacturing facility near Houston as part of owner Elon Musk’s larger plan to build out U.S. solar power capacity over the coming years.
- The development, dubbed Project Crystal Sun, would manufacture photovoltaic cells and assembled solar modules, with a focus on finished products for utility, commercial and residential use, according to documents filed Aug. 6 with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.
- The project is expected to create 9,712 full-time jobs and support more than 1,000 jobs during construction at the proposed Fort Bend County site. If Tesla and the state of Texas reach an agreement, it could begin construction as soon as this year and be operable by the first quarter of 2029.
Dive Insight:
Both of Musk’s companies, Tesla and SpaceX, are separately working toward a combined goal of building out of 100 gigawatts per year of manufactured solar power capacity in the United States, the CEO said at the World Economic Forum at the start of the year.
“That’ll probably take us three years or something,” Musk said at the event. He added that China makes solar cells at an “incredibly low cost,” and thus it would be “worth doing large-scale solar” domestically.
SpaceX has submitted permit applications to build a 10-gigawatt solar cell factory in Bastrop, Texas, with plans to build aerospace-grade infrastructure for its orbital data centers, Bloomberg reported in May.
Currently, Tesla engineers its solar panels and systems in California and assembles them in Buffalo, New York, with a capacity of more than 300 megawatts per year. Project Crystal Sun would massively expand Tesla’s capacity.
Tesla is considering multiple U.S. locations for its proposed solar cell manufacturing facility, but it did not disclose where beyond the Fort Bend County site, according to comptroller documents. The EV and robotics maker is seeking incentives from the state to offset property taxes, including support from the Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology and Innovation Act.
Without the JETI incentives, Tesla said the Fort Bend County site would not be as competitive as the other unnamed site.
Through the first half of the year, Tesla generated $5.5 million in revenue from its energy generation and storage division, which accounts for solar and battery systems. This was comparable to last year.
While energy comprises a fraction of its earnings compared to automotive sales, the company said in its latest report that it’s focusing on ramping production of energy storage products and developing its solar manufacturing and battery technologies.
“There’s going to be tremendous need for electricity in the future,” Musk said on a July 22 earnings call, citing increased demand from the electrification of transportation and artificial intelligence.
“We’re working on what we believe is the most ambitious build-out of advanced infrastructure and manufacturing capacity ever in history,” he said.
SpaceX recently moved forward with plans to invest $16.8 billion on a 100-million-square-foot Terafab semiconductor manufacturing facility in Grimes County, Texas. The first phase of construction is set to begin this year and create 3,000 jobs.
