T1 Energy CEO Dan Barcelo said the United States must dramatically expand domestic solar manufacturing if it hopes to close the gap with China and secure its energy future.
Speaking at a Breitbart News event on Wednesday, Barcelo emphasized that as America’s energy demand accelerates — particularly due to artificial intelligence infrastructure and data centers — solar power offers a key advantage.
“It is the fastest to market right now,” Barcelo said. He added that solar has “one of the lowest costs of development,” and once connected to the grid, it operates at “zero marginal cost.”
Barcelo contrasted U.S. solar capacity with China’s, describing a vast disparity.
“America capacity is just over 50 gigawatts. China kicks our butt there. They’re easily over 1,000 gigawatts of capacity,” he said. Referencing comments by Elon Musk at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Musk suggested producing 100 gigawatts annually, Barcelo called the idea significant but still insufficient.
“If you look at it from the Chinese perspective, it’s actually small,” he said. “America should be double that size.”
Although T1 Energy does not manufacture semiconductors, Barcelo stressed the strategic overlap between solar production and chip manufacturing, particularly regarding polysilicon — a core component in both industries.
“We have to get polysilicon chains here. We have to get the whole chain because it doesn’t only support the solar industry. It supports the semiconductor industry, too,” he explained.
Barcelo detailed T1’s expansion in Texas, including a solar cell fabrication facility in Milam County in Rockdale. Production is expected to begin by the end of the year, with a 2.1 gigawatt capacity feeding into a larger five gigawatt site in Dallas. He said Corning will supply wafers from Michigan, creating what he described as a fully American supply chain.
Barcelo also linked solar expansion to grid resilience, especially during extreme weather events, noting that natural gas remains foundational but that increasing solar and battery storage would strengthen grid flexibility and potentially allow more liquefied natural gas exports.
He framed solar manufacturing as part of a broader push to restore American industrial leadership.
“America was not the number one oil producer in the world. It was Saudi. America is now. America was not the number one gas producer. That was Russia. America is now,” Barcelo said. “There’s no reason that China is also the number one solar producer now. They don’t have to be. America one day can do that.”
