First Solar says it will spend up to $1.2 billion to expand U.S. production.

First Photo voltaic, an enormous photo voltaic panel producer, stated on Tuesday that it might make investments as much as $1.2 billion to construct its fourth manufacturing facility in the US, largely as a result of Congress this month handed a significant power and local weather invoice that expands incentives for renewable power.

The corporate, which relies in Tempe, Ariz., will construct the manufacturing facility someplace within the Southeast, its first one outdoors Ohio. The brand new plant would produce nearly as a lot power-generating capability on an annual foundation as the whole capability put to make use of at photo voltaic farms and rooftops within the first three months of the 12 months nationwide.

First Photo voltaic stated it might additionally develop its three Ohio factories to assist meet rising demand for the corporate’s panels, which use a skinny movie materials relatively than the crystalline silicon utilized in most panels. The corporate stated it might create practically 1,000 jobs between its new and current crops.

Simply two weeks in the past, President Biden signed the power and local weather invoice generally known as the Inflation Discount Act. The regulation authorizes tons of of billions of {dollars} in federal tax credit, grants and loans in an effort to encourage firms and people to change to renewable power and electrical vehicles to fight local weather change.

Photo voltaic companies stand to tremendously profit from the invoice, which can develop and prolong tax credit for renewable power that had been slated to finish or diminish within the coming years.

First Photo voltaic’s announcement additionally helps Mr. Biden and different lawmakers of their targets to develop home manufacturing of photo voltaic panels and cut back the nation’s reliance on China, Malaysia and different Asian nations the place most of those units are made.

“This funding is a crucial step towards attaining self-sufficiency in photo voltaic expertise, which, in flip, helps America’s power safety ambitions, its deployment of photo voltaic at scale and its skill to steer with innovation,” Mark Widmar, First Photo voltaic’s chief government, stated in a press release. “Whereas we have now made no selections right now, we proceed to guage additional investments in incremental capability and will announce additional growth plans sooner or later.”