Suniva closes $835M raise for 4.5 GW South Carolina solar cell plant

Suniva said on September 8, 2026 that it has completed an $835 million capital raise, in debt and equity, to build a 4.5 GW solar cell factory in Laurens County, South Carolina and reach 5.5 GW of US cell capacity. The release, furnished the same day as an exhibit to a Form 8-K by SUNation Energy, the Nasdaq-listed installer whose subsidiary is merging into Suniva, calls the Laurens County plant "an approximately $600 million investment" with "an anticipated 564 new advanced manufacturing jobs," puts completion "in late 2027" and full ramp in 2028. The Norcross, Georgia plant is "already delivering 1 GW," per the release.

The debt is senior secured credit facilities from funds managed by Goldman Sachs Alternatives and I Squared Capital plus a second lien facility from JBA Asset Management; the equity comes from Electron Capital Partners, Orion Infrastructure Capital and Rubric Capital Management "along with certain other investors," and Lion Point Capital is described as the largest shareholder. The release does not split the $835 million between debt and equity. It says long-term offtake agreements "with leading U.S. solar players" cover "the majority of its planned future production," and names no buyer. Suniva president and COO Matt Card told PV Tech the new plant will make PERC cells, which he called "a workhorse product, particularly in the US market"; PV Tech reports he could not confirm the offtakers' identities.

When Governor Henry McMaster's office announced the project on April 14, 2026, it was a "$350 million investment" creating 564 jobs in a leased building in Laurens, with operations "expected to be online in 2027," and the state's Coordinating Council for Economic Development had approved job development credits for it. Utility Dive's April 16, 2026 report said the company anticipated the plant online in the second quarter of 2027. In the September 8, 2026 release the investment is "approximately $600 million" and completion "late 2027," with full ramp in 2028. Neither document says what its figure includes, so the roughly $250 million gap, by our subtraction, is a difference between two documents rather than a stated cost increase.

Under a merger agreement dated June 5, 2026 per the Form 8-K, a SUNation subsidiary will merge into Suniva, with Suniva surviving as a SUNation subsidiary; the release says the combined company is expected to take the Suniva name and keep SUNation's Nasdaq listing. A First Amendment signed September 4, 2026, reported in a second 8-K filed September 8, adds new closing conditions to be voted on by SUNation stockholders: an increase in authorized shares from 1 billion to 1.5 billion, and "the approval of the issuance of SUNation securities in exchange for certain securities issued to Suniva lenders." The release says SUNation intends to file a Form S-4; as of September 14, 2026, EDGAR's filing index for SUNation lists no S-4 since 2022.

The release calls Suniva "the largest and oldest U.S. merchant manufacturer" of monocrystalline silicon cells. PV Tech cites its research arm's count of 26.5 GW of US cell capacity in operation against 77.3 GW of modules; SEIA and Wood Mackenzie's Q3 2026 Solar Market Insight, covered here on September 10, 2026, puts domestic nameplate module manufacturing capacity at roughly 66 GWdc, a separate tally. Deloitte's Keith Adams told Utility Dive for its April 16, 2026 report that an expansion in US cell capacity "could matter because it targets an important remaining bottleneck in the domestic stack."

From Suniva's 2017 petition to the 2026 import floor

The US International Trade Commission's June 1, 2017 notice instituting safeguard investigation TA-201-75 says it acted "in response to a petition, as amended and properly filed on May 17, 2017, by Suniva, Inc."; the notice records the petition, not the remedy. The Section 201 relief that followed, which the commission's March 17, 2026 notice describes as "imposed by the President," ran until it "terminated on February 6, 2026." Utility Dive reports that the company declared bankruptcy in 2017, citing the "dumping of Chinese solar products" into the US, and exited in 2019; pv magazine USA's February 1, 2024 report on the Norcross restart says it had not operated since 2017.

The Section 232 proclamation on polysilicon and its derivatives, signed August 6, 2026 and published in the Federal Register on August 11, sets four minimum import prices from December 4, 2026: $21 per kilogram for polysilicon, $100 per kilogram for polysilicon ingots and wafers, $0.22 per watt for solar cells and $0.38 per watt for solar modules. From the same date it adds a 15 percent tariff on polysilicon ingots and derivatives, with clause 5 setting 10 percent for UK products and, for Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and EU members, counting the regular duty toward the 15. Under clause 2, importers may certify at entry that the first arm's-length US sale will occur at or above the minimum, or that the sale is under fixed contract terms predating the proclamation; an undocumented entry pays a specific tariff equal to the minimum, and a documented entry valued below it pays the difference. The proclamation says the measures "will also replace a similar but narrower safeguard tariff on solar cells and modules that I imposed in my first term, and which expired in February 2026."

Its clause 6 authorizes the Commerce Secretary to approve "onshoring plans" from companies that commit to build, refurbish or expand a US facility for polysilicon, ingots, wafers or cells, with construction starting by January 20, 2029. An approved company may import production equipment and those covered products without the Section 232 duties, in volumes the Secretary deems commensurate with the investment, tied to the construction period, contingent on progress under the plan, and possibly varying with whether the imports use US polysilicon. As of September 14, 2026, a Federal Register search for "polysilicon" published since August 6, 2026 returns only the proclamation: Commerce has published no rule or guidance for the program there, and the proclamation sets no deadline.

Suniva's release does not mention the proclamation, the minimum import price or an onshoring plan; its only reference to tariffs is a risk factor listing "competition, tariffs, trade actions and changes in tax incentives, including the Section 45X advanced manufacturing production credit." The SEIA report says the proclamation "widens the advantage for fully-integrated domestic suppliers and raises the financing bar for cell and wafer capacity," and that the August action and the FCC's inverter action "will now reshape the economics of a full domestic solar supply chain."

Outlook

If the late-2027 completion holds, Laurens County cells begin shipping about a year after the minimum import price takes effect on December 4, 2026, into a market where an imported cell entered below $0.22 per watt pays a specific tariff of the difference, or of the whole floor if the entry is undocumented. Whether Suniva seeks an onshoring plan, a route to importing wafers and production equipment without the Section 232 duties, is not addressed in any document reviewed here, and there is as yet no published Commerce procedure for one. The nearer milestones are corporate: the S-4, and the SUNation stockholder votes the September 4, 2026 amendment made closing conditions.