The US’s largest solar panel maker, First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR), says it’s building the largest thin film R&D center in the Western Hemisphere.

First Solar will site its new R&D center, the Jim Nolan Center for Solar Innovation, in Lake Township, Ohio. The 1.3 million-square-foot facility will include a pilot manufacturing line for producing full-sized prototypes of thin film and tandem PV modules. The company has not yet revealed when it expects to bring the facility online.

“Thin films are the next technological battleground for the solar industry because they are key to commercializing tandem devices, which are anticipated to be the next disruption in photovoltaics,” said First Solar CEO Mark Widmar.

The company has been using a manufacturing line at its Perrysburg, Ohio, factory for late-stage product development, but it said its Perrysburg manufacturing line limits development flexibility, and the new R&D center will accelerate innovation cycles.

The Jim Nolan Center is part of a ~$500 million investment by First Solar in R&D infrastructure. It also expects to commission a perovskite development line at its Perrysburg, Ohio, campus in the second half of 2024. The company, which says it has invested almost $2 billion in R&D, operates laboratories in Perrysburg, Santa Clara, California, and Uppsala, Sweden.

Its California Technology Center (CTC) in Santa Clara recently achieved a 23.1% efficient CdTe cell – a new world record certified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

First Solar exited 2023 with 16.6 gigawatts (GW) of annual global nameplate manufacturing capacity and is expected to achieve over 25 GW of capacity by 2026. It expects to commission new factories in Alabama in the second half of 2024 and Louisiana in the second half of 2025. That will bring its total US nameplate capacity to 14 GW by 2026.

The company’s new R&D infrastructure investments are projected to create around 300 jobs by 2025, most of which will be at the Jim Nolan Center.

Read more: The US’s largest solar panel maker is taking over a Peloton factory

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