Boviet Solar held a festive ribbon cut this week for the assembly facility of 2-GW solar panel in Greenville, North Carolina. The factory, which started to coordinate its lines a few weeks ago, was presented by the many local and national representatives as a production story for Eastern-Noord-Carolina, as well as the Democratic state government Josh Stein. Also present were the global general manager of Boviet Zhaochun Xie and Sienna Cen, president of Boviet Solar USA.
Production on the Solar Panel -Assemblage site of Boviet Solar’s North Carolina. Credit: SPW
The Paneldactory, which has already hired 370 employees, will make both mono and bifacial solar panels for the American market. Combined with generous state stimuli, Boviet has invested nearly $ 300 million to renovate an existing 521,460-ft2 Building in Indigreen Corporate Park. The company also builds a second 500,000 ft2 Factory next door that will produce 3 GW of solar cells annually. Boviet broke the land in the cell factory and is planning to start production in the second half of 2026. When both campuses are ready, Boviet says that it will employ 1,300 people in Greenville.
I wish I could say more about my visit to the panel factory, but it is surprising to get routine – never thought I would say that, reporting about the production market of the American solar panel. The assembly lines ran and the employees knew their role. Things already look like a well-oiled machine, and that’s all you can ask, because the United States quickly scales the production capacity of solar energy.
I spoke with many EPCs and installers who were present at the ribbon cut, and they all said the same: Boviet is a consistent and reliable company with which they have built up great relationships. They are enthusiastic about this new factory in the United States, but they are more enthusiastic for the cell factory to get started, so that they have access to extra domestic content stimuli.
Boviet Solar was founded in Vietnam in 2013 and is currently supporting a cell and panel production – outfit there. Although not founded with Chinese tires, Boviet is now a subsidiary of the Chinese material manufacturer Ningbo Boway Alloy Materials Co. About a dozen Boviet -employees from Greenville went to Vietnam for six weeks to learn the assembly line activities. Many of those supervisors and operators led tours through the factory in production during the ribbon cutting event.
The current factory in the solar panel was once the home of Denso Manufacturing, which made engines for wipers, electronic windows and other autoconents. When the company Greenville left in 2023475 people lost their jobs. Boviet strives to invest in the Greenville community and has hired many of those former Denso employees. With even more employees needed for the cell production factory, Boviet will have a large presence in the city.
The United States screams for domestic solar cells and boviet will benefit from its own domestic stock. The Vietnamese solar panels of Boviet were excluded from rates initiated in the first AD/CVD case on the import of Southeast -Asian solar -sun in 2023, but the import will be plagued under the second AD/CVD round. Commerce has just announced its latest tariff amounts and the Vietnamese cells and panels of Boviet are confronted with a rate of 307.78%. That means that the cells that Boviet imports from his own factory in Vietnam for panels that are assembled in North Carolina will have a higher rate than most. The second half of 2026 cannot come fast enough.
