Canadian solar glass manufacturer to open U.S. factory

Canadian Premium Sand (CPS), a manufacturer of pattern glass for solar panels, announced operational updates on its Manitoba- based factory and communicated plans for establishing a factory in the United States.

The company has selected a factory site in the United States, with plans to repurpose a former glass manufacturing facility to produce 4 GW of solar glass per year. CPS said it intends to partner with a U.S. glass manufacturer, bringing glass manufacturing expertise, purchasing power for equipment and raw materials and in-house engineering capability.

CPS said its customers in the U.S. have expressed a desire for domestic solar glass supply. Solar panel manufacturing capacity is expected to increase from 12 GW in 2022 to 52 GW by the end of 2025 following increased demand driven by the industrial policy set forth in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). IRA policies also provide an incentive to end users of solar panels to maximize domestic content in solar panel installations, driving solar energy suppliers to locate and expand their manufacturing facilities in the U.S.

The company’s U.S. wholly-owned subsidiary CPS Glass USA Corp. filed for U.S. Department of Energy’s investment tax credit. The allocation decision for this application is expected in Q1 2025.

Manitoba facility

CPS has also submitted applications to scale a Manitoba-based manufacturing facility, which is expected to produce 6 GW of solar glass at full operations. It applied for $272 million in funding, including $100 million in non-dilutive financial support, $72 million financial support from the Province of Manitoba, and has held discussions with Manitoba-based indigenous groups related to their participation in the Selkirk Project of $100 million utilizing Canada’s federal Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program.

The company said its low-iron sand deposit in Manitoba can support capacity for both proposed facilities for over 20 years. With both facilities providing a total of 10 GW of solar glass combined, the Company is preparing to become the largest supplier of patterned solar glass and the only vertically integrated glass manufacturer in North America.

“Establishing 10 GW supply of both low-carbon and U.S. manufactured ultra clear pattern solar glass aligns CPS with the supply chain goals of our North American customers”, stated Glenn Leroux, president & chief executive officer, CPS.

CPS has announced offtake agreements with Swiss module manufacturer Meyer Burger, Canada-based Heliene, and Qcells, owned by South Korea’s Hanwha.

Solar glass market

Andries Wantenaar from market intelligence company Rethink Technology Research said demand for solar glass is looking robust and prices are relatively stable.

“If you make solar glass, you have a very large and very rapidly growing ­market outside of China to sell to,” said Wantenaar. “You won’t be stuck in the situation of Western polysilicon makers, whose customers are the wafer makers in China who are now buying from Chinese polysilicon makers exclusively at prices well below the Western marginal cost of production.”

Glass material prices are relatively stable. “The price of solar-grade glass has been stubborn for at least a decade now because it’s a totally figured-out product,” said Wantenaar. The caveat is that glass is an energy-intensive product, which is a strong cost factor, and one reason why China dominates its production. Wantenaar estimated that China holds “around 90%” of the solar glass market, higher than its 80% PV module share.

(Read: “No ceiling on U.S. glass opportunity”)

Wantenaar said glass will represent a bigger share of module costs in the future, as other elements become more cost-efficient and the bifacial module trend, typically featuring glass on both sides rather than a glass front combined with a polymer backsheet, intensifies.