CS PowerTech Phase I Goes Live with 2.1 Gigawatts at River Ridge

CS PowerTech, the U.S. subsidiary of Canadian Solar, brought 2.1 gigawatts of nameplate photovoltaic cell capacity online in Jeffersonville on July 24, with Phase II targeted for early 2027 at 6.3 gigawatts total. SEIA put total U.S. solar cell production capacity at 3.2 gigawatts at the end of the first half of this year, so one Clark County plant at full buildout roughly triples the domestic base.

The technology choice tells you why this plant is durable. Canadian Solar built heterojunction (HJT) rather than TOPCon, which sidesteps the Section 337 ITC patent case First Solar filed against Canadian Solar and nine other respondents, a case where the USPTO denied Canadian Solar's invalidation bid in January 2026. No other named respondent has replicated HJT at commercial scale in the U.S. HJT cells also consume significantly more silver than TOPCon, and CS PowerTech has not publicly disclosed silver paste or ITO sourcing for Jeffersonville. The primary supplier may already be locked, but qualification and secondary-source openings on a ramp that size are real. If you run specialty materials, precision fabrication, or electrical systems capability, that is a call to River Ridge this week.