The issue of solar cells that Hanwha Solutions exports to the United States has resurfaced. Three U.S. solar module manufacturers asked U.S. trade authorities to investigate Korean-made solar cells. A solar cell issue that plagued Hanwha Solutions throughout 2025 and was resolved has flared up again. Some in the industry think it will end as a simple hiccup.
On the 23rd (local time), Reuters reported that American Manufacturers for Energy Resilience, representing Canadian Solar, SEG Solar, and Heliene, which operate solar module plants in the United States, filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Commerce seeking a circumvention dumping investigation into imports of Korean-made solar cells.
The group claimed that Qcells, the solar business unit of Hanwha Solutions, moved its cell production facilities from China to Korea to avoid U.S. tariffs. Under U.S. trade law, if processing via a third country is minimal, tariffs can be expanded to imports from that country as well.
The solar supply chain consists of "polysilicon → ingot → wafer → cell → module." Hanwha Solutions has produced solar cells at its Jincheon plant in North Chungcheong and in Malaysia and shipped them to its solar module plants in Dalton and Cartersville, Georgia.
Qcells last year suffered growing pains in the United States over solar cell customs clearance. At the time, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) put a hold on clearance at the Port of Long Beach, California, saying polysilicon produced with forced labor in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region might have been mixed into cells that Qcells made in Jincheon, Korea, and in Malaysia.
Qcells later explained that it was securing non-Chinese polysilicon from OCI Holdings, which is based in Malaysia, among others. Early this year, the explanation process concluded, and normal clearance was completed for the cells that had been stuck at the port.
This petition may have arisen from competition within the industry. Qcells recently joined U.S. solar manufacturers in asking the U.S. government to investigate solar cells exported from Southeast Asia. Some of the Southeast Asian imports that were at issue then are being supplied to the corporations that filed this petition targeting Qcells.
A source in the solar industry said, "It seems to be a kind of retaliatory petition," and added, "Given that Qcells is building a solar value chain in the United States, this, too, is likely to end as a hiccup without much trouble."
In early June, Qcells completed the cell production line at its Cartersville, Georgia, plant and will begin mass production in July. With this, Qcells established at the Cartersville plant North America's first solar value chain from ingot → wafer → cell → module, excluding polysilicon.
The Cartersville plant's production capacities for ingots, wafers, and cells are each 3.3 gigawatts (GW) per year. Module production capacity is 3.5 GW per year, and including the Dalton plant's module capacity (5.1 GW), Qcells' U.S. module production capacity is 8.6 GW.