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Most solar panels are imported from China which now has the ability to manufacture over a terawatt (1,000 gigawatts) of solar modules every year — roughly equal to the entire installed base of generation in the US inclusive from every energy source.

America makes less than 1/20 of that amount and even less when it comes to the more difficult task of manufacturing cells.

But Texas is known for manufacturing and T1 — short for Type 1 civilization — is building solar manufacturing in Texas that could change the game.

This is about energy abundance that is reliable, local, and affordable.

As T1 CEO Daniel Barcelo told me:

“I’ve been working in oil and gas and I am an old oil and gas guy who has run oil and gas companies globally. At the end of the day, it’s really about providing the lowest cost energy in whatever form it is and delivering that energy at a cost-competitive basis to the customer. That drives the philosophy at T1.”

T1’s plan is straightforward and ambitious: a multi-site Texas footprint that connects a domestic solar manufacturing chain from materials to finished modules. The company has a module assembly plant in Wilmer in the Dallas area, and is developing cell manufacturing in Rockdale in Central Texas. Upstream, they’ve lined up domestic polysilicon supply from Corning to feed those lines.

While T1 scales up supply, demand for power is surging.

Texas electricity use is rising rapidly, driven mostly by oil and gas demand, cryptocurrency mining, industrial electrification, and data centers. Texas demand is up 23% in the last four years; most of that new demand is being met by solar power.

When more of the equipment is made here, projects move faster and carry less supply-chain risk. And solar can be scaled very quickly to meet near-term needs.

“AI needs energy. Data centers need energy. They need it now. It’s great to build nuclear plants in 2030. That’s awesome. But the world’s not waiting. And the big tech companies are not waiting. And right now, solar and storage can deliver it.”

This is not either-or. Texas has long succeeded by adding the next tool that works. Solar plus storage are tools for growth and we should use them.

Domestic manufacturing creates jobs and strengthens our energy security and global competitiveness.

Texas has never waited for someone else to build our future. If companies like T1 can stand up the full stack here, we get more than panels.

We get speed, security, control, and the ability to match ERCOT’s needs with Texas-made solutions.

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Timestamps

* 00:00 – Introduction

* 02:00 – T1’s Texas footprint overview

* 04:00 – U.S. solar chain, Corning partnership

* 05:30 – Jobs and polysilicon-to-module flow

* 07:00 – Building U.S. cell capacity

* 09:00 – Timelines and receptivity of Texas political leaders

* 11:00 – Demand growth requires gigawatts per month

* 13:00 – Competitive advantages of building in Texas

* 15:30 – Oil and gas demand growth met by solar and wind, saving $1/barrel

* 20:30 – When King Coal tried to kill natural gas and why gas won

* 23:00 – Political economy of varying energy sources

* 25:30 – Can the US build enough solar to meet domestic need and export?

* 31:00 – Solar trade investigations, tariffs, anti-dumping rules, FEOC

* 35:00 – Solar and manufacturing tax credits under OBBBA, “stackability”

* 38:00 – How and why tax policy benefits all energy, including oil and gas

* 42:00 – Will Texas continue to blaze trails and attract new energy companies?

* 45:00 – Distributed power is “sovereign energy”

Resources

Guest & Company• Daniel Barcelo — LinkedIn • T1 Energy — Company Website + LinkedIn

Company & Industry News• Reuters: T1 Energy and Corning agree to fully U.S.-made solar supply chain• PV Tech: T1 Energy–Corning “landmark” U.S.-made poly/wafer/cell deal• Manufacturing Dive: T1 to establish $850M solar cell facility in Texas• T1 Energy IR: Corning deal accelerates ‘Made in America’ solar • T1 Energy IR: Strategic investment in Talon PV

Related Articles & Podcasts• How Batteries Are Reshaping the Texas Grid (with Suzanne Leta) • Beyond the Tax Credit Cliff (with Freedom Solar CEO Bret Biggart) • Creating a Distributed Battery Network (with Zach Dell)• The End of Solar & Battery Manufacturing in America?

Studies & Policy Documents
• S&P Platts 2022 Study On Electrification of the Permian Basin
• Rystad Study on $/barrel savings
• FERC Order 636
• Section 232 Investigations
• Foreign Entity of Concern Guidance | Dept. of Energy

Doug’s Platforms• LinkedIn • YouTube• X (Twitter)

Transcript

Doug Lewin (00:05 .25)

Welcome to the Energy Capital Podcast. I’m your host, Doug Lewin. My guest this week was Daniel Barcelo, the CEO and chairman of the board of T1 Energy. We talked about how they got their name in this episode. I think you’ll enjoy that. This is a fascinating company, headquartered in Texas. They are building out a full end-to-end manufacturing of solar in Texas. They started with the acquisition of a manufacturing plant, five gigawatts of solar module assembly in Wilmer, Texas, just south of Dallas. They are currently building in Rockdale, Texas, about 60 miles north of Austin, a cell manufacturing facility. So obviously cells are much more complicated to manufacture, much more complex than the module manufacturing. They are also in partnership with Owens Corning to get the raw materials actually sourced here in America. So that when they are done with that process in a year or two, they will have end-to-end American solar manufacturing. So we talked a lot about the potential for American manufacturing of solar, how big it is now, what its potential is to maybe counterbalance China, which is really dominating electricity supply chains throughout a whole number of different components, including all parts of the solar supply chain. They’re dominating that globally. Can America be a counterbalance? One of the things I really enjoyed about this conversation is Daniel has a great perspective, having worked in oil and gas for much of his career, really at the broad spectrum of energy. So I think that really comes through in the interview. I think you’re going to enjoy that.

This is a paid episode. If you’re not already a paid subscriber, please become one today. You’ll get access to all sorts of things, roundups, reading your podcast picks, other paid episodes of the Energy Capital Podcast. Most importantly, you will be supporting the work of this podcast, the Texas Energy and Power Newsletter. They are not cheap to produce, and your six bucks a month or five bucks a month if you do an annual subscription is incr