No country has influenced global solar panel supply chains as much as the United States. Since the rise of solar energy in the early 2010s, the U.S. government has pursued Chinese companies around the world, initiating tariffs on products that are “dumped” into the U.S. market at uncompetitive prices.
Elite solar cell factory in Egypt. Credit: Solar Power World
When the Commerce Department first imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese solar panels in 2012, manufacturers shifted production to Taiwan and then to Southeast Asia. Regardless of China’s involvement, Southeast Asia became the main production location for solar panels until the United States imposed more tariffs on products from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Operations picked up again and now the United States is looking to India, Indonesia and Laos for more anti-dumping measures.
One area where intensive supply chain monitoring has not taken place is the Middle East and Africa (MEA). The region is emerging as an ideal place to establish silicon solar panel production to avoid tariffs and provide the United States with much-needed solar product that meets Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) requirements.
This is the background of how an American solar journalist ended up in Egypt touring a solar cell and panel production complex.
Headquarters in Singapore ELITE solar energy formally commissioned its 3-GW panel and 2-GW cell manufacturing complex in Egypt’s Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) earlier this month with a visit from Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly. A few weeks later, American partners and other guests were invited.
The 40,000 m² complex opened in December 2024 and started production within twelve months. ELITE Solar already has many supply agreements with American project developers and signed an agreement with a major American developer during the grand opening last week.
Luigi Resta, CEO of rPlus Energies, said ELITE’s new facilities in Egypt will benefit future generations as the world tackles climate change. He paraphrased a sentence from Deuteronomy: “We drink from wells we have not dug and sit in the shade of trees we have not planted.”
Factories in Egypt
ELITE Solar was founded in 2005 as ET Solar and has always had a special focus on serving the US market. In 2023, the company was renamed ELITE Solar after splitting from its utility construction arm to focus entirely on panel production. ELITE also has cell and panel manufacturing facilities in Indonesia and is setting up a solar wafer manufacturing facility in Vietnam with long-time partner OCI Holdings.
The company makes PERC and n-type solar panels using 182 and 210 mm wafers. The solar panels for the utility market reach 630 to 725 W with an efficiency of more than 23.3%.
ELITE invested approximately $115 million in the combined manufacturing facilities in Egypt, with SCZone citing employment figures of 400 for the cell factory and 460 for panel assembly. During last week’s tour, the panel factory had more staff on the assembly floor, while the cell operation was much more automated. Autonomous robots moved around the factory floor, positioning racks to move cells to the next production step. The automation at ELITE’s Egyptian operations is far more advanced than anything seen in cell and panel production in the United States.
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MEA popularity
Egypt is emerging as a production center for clean energy, and not just for solar panels. Within the SCZone, JA Solar recently announced this it would make its own production of cells and modules complex, and Sungrow has signed an agreement to create battery energy storage systems in the zone. GCL also plans to do so to develop solar cells in Egypt, and more and more battery and transformer manufacturers are also looking to the country.
The Middle East is growing in popularity, with Jinko and TCL looking to Saudi Arabia for their operations, United Solar setting up polysilicon production in Oman and GameChange Solar manufacturing trackers in Saudi Arabia. An overview of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows that there has been an increase in the number of solar cells from Ethiopia Toyo’s factory began production and Origin Solar have shipped their first orders, probably for Canadian Solar. NE Solar/ZNShine said this week that it is now a cell factory in Nigeriashowing that solar energy production is expanding across Africa.
At the grand opening of ELITE Solar in Egypt, both ELITE Chairman Derek Liu and OCI Chairman Woo Hyun Lee wore cowboy hats that they said represented the “cowboy spirit” of what they do together. Lee molded Liu as a “modern-day Genghis Khan” for ELITE’s early entry into the Egyptian market, paving the way for solar domination across the region.
