Why this conference:
US solar manufacturing is moving into a more demanding phase today. The first wave of announcements focused on capacity plans, factory openings and job creation potential. The next phase focuses on how production lines are specified, how factories are built and run, how technologies are selected, and how the sector defines a credible long-term roadmap.
Solar Manufacturing USA 2026 has been designed specifically for the manufacturing side of the industry, bringing together the companies building domestic production, the suppliers enabling factory ramp-up, the experts benchmarking quality and performance, and the technology voices shaping what-comes-next.
This is not a downstream solar event, and it is not a general policy forum. It is a focused meeting point for the people making decisions on factory execution, equipment, materials, process flows, technology ownership and long-term manufacturing strategy in the United States.
Who attends:
Where buyers, manufacturers and suppliers meet
Solar Manufacturing USA 2026 brings the full U.S. solar manufacturing ecosystem into one room, with particular emphasis on the buyers, investors and third-party entities whose participation helps define the commercial relevance of the event. Held in Austin, Texas, the event also gives delegates access to the state where solar manufacturing activity is becoming most concentrated, with opportunities for follow-on meetings and factory visits beyond the two-day programme.
- Buyers, developers and investors: Module buyers, procurement teams, and investors looking to understand what is really being produced in the U.S., how supply chains are evolving across polysilicon, wafers, cells and modules, and which manufacturers are emerging as credible long-term partners.
- Manufacturers and fab developers: Existing manufacturers across polysilicon, ingots, wafers, cells, modules and thin film, alongside companies with fabs under construction and those planning new domestic production over the next few years.
- Equipment, materials and turnkey suppliers: Equipment suppliers, materials companies, EPCs, turnkey factory and line providers, infrastructure specialists and adjacent industrial players seeking to support or expand within the U.S. solar manufacturing base.
- Third-party validation and due diligence: Factory auditors, testing and inspection firms, independent engineers and due-diligence specialists supporting lenders, buyers and manufacturers with benchmarking, performance validation and quality assurance.
- Industry bodies and R&D partners: Domestic labs, R&D institutions, manufacturing coalitions and industry bodies seeking partnerships, technology pathways and stronger links between U.S. innovation and commercial production.
Austin is the gateway to a state where U.S. solar manufacturing is becoming increasingly localized, scaled and visible. For many delegates, the value of attending will extend beyond the conference itself to include follow-on meetings and factory visits in Texas.
Attendees are expected to include CTOs, heads of R&D, manufacturing and operations leaders, procurement teams, commercial and strategy executives, and specialists involved in supply-chain, quality and market-entry decisions.
Organizers: pv magazine · Finlay Colville
When purchasing battery energy storage systems (BESS), price is only the starting point. The procurement process is often riddled with hidden pitfalls that can jeopardize project delivery and expected returns if not carefully managed.
The opening session sets the scene for Solar Fab-Tech USA 2026, combining a market-led overview of the domestic manufacturing base from conference Chair Finlay Colville with a C-level industry perspective on the technologies, strategic investments and execution realities driving U.S. solar production.
This session examines how solar cell manufacturing in the U.S. can be built around differentiation and innovation, focusing on the cell architectures, production equipment and technology roadmaps defining the sector.
This session features leading U.S. solar manufacturers sharing production-line metrics on yield, quality and performance, alongside independent testing, factory audits and due-diligence processes that help validate industry benchmarks.
This session examines the upstream transition unfolding today as U.S. solar manufacturing moves from ambition to execution, with presentations from the companies leading new domestic ingot and wafer production.
Extending the morning focus on cell innovation, this session examines how new U.S. solar cell lines are being specified to enable in-house ownership of technology choice, process-flow customization and Intellectual Property.
This session explores the capital build-out now underway across U.S. solar manufacturing, with a focus on the companies designing, equipping and delivering the factories and production lines behind new domestic capacity.
This session explores the OPEX side of U.S. solar manufacturing, with a focus on materials supply, cost control and the factory-level economics that will determine long-term viability.
Technology selection for the first wave of new U.S. solar production lines is already spanning a broad range of options, including PERC, TOPCon and heterojunction. This session explores how the sector may evolve from today’s mixed manufacturing landscape toward higher-performing cell structures such as back-contact and tandem architectures, including perovskites.
This closing session uses the current U.S. manufacturing base as the springboard for defining a pathway to 100 GW by 2035. Through industry-led presentations and debate, the session asks how the sector gets there, what is still missing, and how today’s technologies, investments and manufacturing footprint can form the basis of a credible long-term roadmap.
Agenda
Moderator
Ryan joined pv magazine in 2021, bringing experience from a top residential solar installer and a U.S.-based inverter manufacturer. He holds a Master of Energy and Environmental Management degree at the University of Connecticut and a degree in Management with a certification in Sustainable Business Practices from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Finlay Colville has been actively engaged with the solar industry for more than 20 years and is recognised as a leading analyst in the sector. For 15 years, Finlay managed market research business units at Solarbuzz and PV-Tech. He established Terawatt PV Research in 2025 as the working platform for his activities going forward.
Speakers
Extensive career in solar power spanning university, government and industrial positions across three continents. Managed the establishment and operation of five solar R&D facilities and developed software tools that are widely used for silicon photovoltaic solar cell characterization and manufacturing cost modeling. Advisor to federal, city, and university solar programs.
Dr. Beck is an innovator and strategist with over 3 decades of senior and executive RD&D, project & operations management expertise in the photovoltaic industry. He served as Chief Technologist at First Solar in the United States and Vice President of the PV Development Team at Samsung in Korea, as well as in other leadership positions at 3 PV startups and has advised several global companies in the renewable energy sector on technology and business-related aspects. In his role as the Program Manger for the Manufacturing and Competitiveness sub-program at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office Dr. Beck focused on private-public partnerships through strategy and program development supporting industry-lead innovation and new product development and demonstration across the full PV value chain. He recently joined RCT Solutions, a global owner’s and lender’s engineering firm successfully executing over 100GW of projects to date. Dr. Beck will focus on supporting PV manufacturing activities in the North American market.
Dr. Beck holds a PhD in physical chemistry and has been awarded over a dozen scholarships and awards in the field of PV research and manufacturing. He is the primary inventor on 22 patents. As a subject-matter expert of ANSI US-TAG and IEC TC82 WG2, for two decades he has been actively engaged in global PV-standards activities. Dr. Beck has served on numerous DOE PV review boards and chaired the IEEE Santa Clara Valley PV Chapter from 2013–2015. He is a subject-matter expert for the peer-reviewed journals Thin Solid Films and Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, and in 2012 was appointed to the editorial board of the latter.
Mike has worked for 30 years designing policies and building consensus to advance clean energy technologies.
He specializes in finding innovative approaches to solving the unique problems of emerging, disruptive technologies that can transcend our current difficult political environment.
Working with U.S. industry leaders over the last 5 years, Mike launched and serves as Executive Director of the Solar Energy Manufacturers for America Coalition (SEMA). SEMA achieved an early policy win by developing, with allied interests in Congress, the 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit and the Domestic Content Bonus Incentive enacted into law in 2022. SEMA then continued to work to improve implementation guidance for the following 2 years and successfully defended the credit in the most recent tax bill passed in July of 2025. Under Mike’s leadership SEMA has built strong, bipartisan ties in Congress as well as the Administration, becoming a leading voice in continuing manufacturing reshoring efforts.
His federal government experience – spanning the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Senate Energy Committee, and the U.S. Department Energy – has been focused on creating policy incentives and frameworks to enable the U.S. clean energy industry to flourish and deliver its benefits both in affordable energy and quality jobs to Americans.
His most recent federal service was as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the Senior Advisor to the Director of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis at the US Department of Energy from 2012 to 2015. He was a member of the leadership team advising the Secretary on clean energy policy, in addition to being a guiding force on the R&D and deployment agenda within EERE.
Prior to DOE, Mike served as Senior Counsel to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources from 2004 to June 2012. In that influential role, he conceived of, drafted, and guided through Congress a number of incentive programs and laws that now direct major Department of Energy programs. Prominent examples include the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program (used by Tesla, Ford, and Nissan to significantly expand US manufacturing of cutting-edge vehicles), and the L-Prize (which helped catalyze the commercial introduction of consumer LED light bulbs). All of these policies enjoyed broad bipartisan support.
He holds a law degree, with a Certificate of Specialization in Environmental and Natural Resources Law, from Lewis and Clark College and a Bachelor’s from the University of Colorado – Boulder.
Tim Crane is Senior Director of Supply Chain at Palmetto, where he leads sourcing, planning, and procurement across the company’s hardware portfolio, with direct accountability for approved vendor and product management and compliance with FEOC, UFLPA, and Domestic Content requirements.
Tim brings two decades of solar procurement leadership to the panel, having built and directed sourcing organizations at Sunrun, Tesla/SolarCity, and Mainstream Energy (parent of REC Solar and AEE Solar). Across these roles he has led global hardware sourcing strategy covering modules, inverters, batteries, and mounting systems — consistently delivering material cost reductions while maintaining the service and quality standards that large residential and commercial portfolios demand.
Throughout his career, Tim has operated at the intersection of two competing imperatives that define serious procurement leadership: the relentless pressure to reduce cost of acquisition, and the equally real obligation to ensure that what gets specified and purchased will perform bankably over a 25-year asset life. His work has consistently required reconciling those demands while navigating supply chain traceability, ethical sourcing, and third-party quality assurance — the same issues now at the center of the U.S. manufacturing conversation.
Frank Faller is the Chief Technology Officer of ELITE Solar, where he leads the company’s technical strategy and innovation roadmap for utility-scale solar project development across Europe.
With over three decades of experience in the solar PV industry, Dr. Faller brings deep expertise spanning R&D, manufacturing, system design, and technology commercialization. His career has bridged leading roles in both research institutions and industry, enabling him to drive technical excellence from lab to large-scale deployment.
Prior to joining ELITE Solar, Dr. Faller held senior positions across the global solar sector, overseeing advancements in solar cell and module technologies, scaling production lines, and improving system performance. His work has played a pivotal role in shaping efficient, bankable solutions for large-scale PV projects.
Dr. Faller earned his Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg, in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE)—a globally renowned center for solar research and innovation.
Mr. Rob Foree is a Project Manager with over 12 years of energy industry experience and lead’s Black & Veatch’s independent assessment and bankability practice for new and novel energy generating technologies with the goal of providing insight and detailed review of the product’s design, performance, reliability, manufacturing and quality. Mr. Foree specializes in independent technical assessments and due diligence for solar PV modules (PERC, TOPCon, HJT, and Perovskites), all types of solar racking systems (fixed, single-axis tracker, rooftop, floating, and dual-axis), and various battery energy storage (BESS) technologies. He has led and performed numerous assessments for well known PV module, racking, and battery providers across the globe and is knowlegable about the best practices and risks assocciated with these technologies.
Charles F. Gay, Ph.D., is a pioneer and global leader in solar technology with more than 50 years in the field. He earned his B.S. in Chemistry (1968) and Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry (1978) from UC Riverside. He has led world-first manufacturing milestones at ARCO Solar, Siemens Solar, ASE Americas, and Applied Materials, and served as Director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office (2016–2019) and Director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (1994–1997). He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2013 and is an inventor on more than 15 issued U.S. patents.
Kevin has 18 years of solar deployment experience across a range of sectors and geographies, including 15 years of engineering management. He cut his teeth in the industry at REC Solar, Prospect Solar, and Direct Energy Solar / Centrica Business Solutions. In his 7 years at Oriden, he has overseen the engineering team supporting projects in all stages of development and procurement of modules, BESS, EPC services, and long lead HV equipment. Kevin has an M.S. in Engineering Management from Robert Morris University and a B.S. in Engineering Science from Pennsylvania State University. When he’s not procuring for clean energy projects, Kevin might be playing with his kids, cycling, playing ice hockey, practicing yoga, or taking on projects around the house.
Scott Graybeal is the Chief Executive Officer of Caelux, a company that is commercializing perovskite solar technology that enables high density Double Power Layer modules. Caelux is headquartered in California with operations in Taiwan and India.
Scott has spent nearly two decades in solar, with hands-on leadership across the full value chain — from process equipment to project development to module manufacturing. He previously led the Energy Solutions Segment at Flex Ltd (NASDAQ: FLEX), a $2B division serving the solar, energy storage, and LED lighting markets, where under his leadership Flex Energy became the third largest producer of PV modules outside of mainland China and patented several key solar manufacturing innovations. He led Flex’s acquisition of Nextracker (NXT on Nasdaq). Scott’s broader career spans construction tech and semiconductors. Before joining Caelux, he was COO of Veev Group and CEO of Veev Build, and he has held key leadership roles at Intevac, Amonix, Oerlikon Solar, Veeco Instruments, Applied Materials, and General Electric.
Scott has guest lectured on renewables and entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon and Georgetown. He served with distinction as a nuclear submarine officer and is a certified nuclear engineering officer by the Departments of the Navy and Energy. Scott earned his MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management and his BS in Chemistry from UC San Diego.
Dr. Henry Hieslmair joined DNV in 2017 and has been focused on various module topics including photovoltaic system degradation, PV module useful life assessments, PV module waste volume, toxicity and circularity (Nature Physics 19.10 (2023)), module O&M modeling, utility plant construction automation, and emerging module technologies. Henry Hieslmair has worked in the PV solar industry since 1993 when he began his PV career at Siemens Solar Industries in Camarillo CA (previously ARCO Solar). Subsequently, he pursued his graduate and post-graduate work at U.C. Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories where he focused on process improvements for multi and monocrystalline PV silicon. After his studies, he cofounded a start-up where he designed and developed a thin multicrystalline interdigitated-back-contact PV cell and module. In 2010, as an early employee at another start-up, he helped pioneer the first high productivity (>3000 wafer per hour) ion implantation tools for the PV industry for phosphorous and boron doping (was utilized for early TOPCon manufacturing). Subsequently, at SunEdison, he worked to commercialize their Continuous Czochralski silicon growth method, performed cell-to-module loss analyses, developed module testing procedures, and performed extensive analysis on boron-oxygen light induced degradation. Over the course of his career, Henry has also consulted for many firms involved in silicon PV including DOE Sunshot program, Solexel, Kleiner Perkins, and Crystal Solar. He has 7 patents and has authored or co-authored over 50 conference and journal articles on PV materials science, device operation, and manufacturing.
Ms. Jester is one of the world’s longest tenured solar engineering and operations executives. Ms. Jester has been focused on solar PV for the last 45+ years. She recently retired after serving as Managing Director of North American operations for Kiwa PI Berlin, a leading risk management and quality assurance service provider for solar power plant equipment. She has held executive management positions at several solar manufacturing companies and other renewable energy industries around the globe-including board positions with numerous companies, particularly with Highland Materials where she serves as Chairman of the Board, and Next Energies Technologies where she serves as an Independent Director.
Tomas Leijtens is CTO and Co-Founder of Swift Solar, a leading developer of perovskite tandem solar technology. A globally recognized expert in perovskite photovoltaics, Leijtens has spent more than a decade advancing next-generation solar cells, with a particular focus on improving stability, efficiency, and commercial scalability. Prior to co-founding Swift Solar, he served as a research scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and conducted research at Stanford University and the University of Oxford. His work includes pioneering contributions to the development of the first perovskite-silicon and all-perovskite tandem solar cells, helping lay the foundation for the emerging tandem solar industry. Leijtens holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Oxford and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University. He has authored hundreds of scientific publications and patents and has been recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 Fellow and a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher.
Mr. Nicholson has over 20 years of experience in the power and energy industry, with a focus in independent engineering and execution of EPC portfolios in both the renewable power and oil and gas industry. His background includes direct leadership and management of over $1.5 billion in power and energy infrastructure projects comprising of major utility-scale EPC contracts, PV module and other equipment supply agreements as well as managing the full project life cycle from feasibility through commissioning and operations. Prior to joining Luminate, Mr. Nicholson held leadership positions in project development, supply chain management and project management of PV solar, BESS and other energy infrastructure that have included concept development, interconnection management, EPC contracting and negotiation, and managing large multi-discipline project teams.
Nate Picarsic is the founder of Horizon Advisory, a leading supply chain and geopolitical risk data firm. He holds affiliations as a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Krach Institute. His commentaries on supply chains, investment, and technology have been published in outlets ranging from Bloomberg to TechCrunch. He holds a BA from Harvard College and has completed executive education at Harvard Business School and the Defense Acquisition University.
Xavier Quinet is a procurement executive with over 25 years of experience in industrial and renewable energy sectors. He currently serves as VP of Procurement at Treaty Oak Clean Energy in Austin, Texas and leads strategic sourcing for utility-scale solar and BESS projects. Previously, he held senior roles at BayWa r.e. Americas and ENGIE Solar, overseeing procurement and EPC construction of hundreds of megawatts across North America and internationally.
Jochen Rentsch holds a PhD in physics from Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and worked at Fraunhofer ISE from 2001 to 2026, focusing on silicon solar cell and production technology development. Over this period, he led both research and large-scale industrial transfer projects, building strong links between cutting-edge R&D and industry implementation. At Fraunhofer ISE, he headed a group and later a department dedicated to advancing silicon solar cell technologies and their manufacturing processes. In the last five years of his tenure, he served as Head of Technology Transfer, driving the commercialization of research results and supporting industry partners in adopting innovative renewable energy solutions. In early 2026, he became co-founder and CEO of Nexus GreenTech, a company specializing in business consultancy for renewable energy technologies. Nexus GreenTech supports companies and investors in developing, scaling, and industrializing sustainable energy technologies and value chains.
Dr. Romero is a Senior Managing Director of Black & Veatch Management Consulting. He leads the Bankability and Technology Advisory practice. Dr. Romero specializes in the assessment of risks of new technologies and the development of strategies to mitigate the risks. His team performs bankability studies of new technologies and provides technology advisory services tailored to meet clients’ needs in areas of technology validation, design, performance, reliability, manufacturing, and others. Dr. Romero is a renowned photovoltaics specialist.
Juan Carlos currently leads the procurement of PV modules and other equipment categories in the U.S. for Lightsource bp. Previously, Juan Carlos held a similar position at RWE and also sold wind turbines at Goldwind. Prior to that, Juan Carlos obtained his Master’s degree in Industrial Technology and Management from the Illinois Institute of Technology and a Bacherlor’s of Science in Electromechanical Engineering from the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid.
Angad has been with Apex Clean Energy for four years leading PV technology review and module procurement for its solar project pipeline. He draws on 12 years of industry experience in solar resource assessment and design, with previous roles at Avangrid and Borrego (now New Leaf Energy).
Laureen is CCO of CubicPV, which is creating a solar future defined by more powerful perovskite tandem solar modules. She is a renewable energy executive with nearly 25 years’ of experience in business development, corporate strategy, and marketing and communications.
Adam Tesanovich brings over two decades of expertise in entrepreneurship, operations management, supply chain efficiency, financial management, regulatory compliance, risk management, and commercial strategy. Mr. Tesanovich is Co-Founder and CEO of TALON PV, a Texas based manufacture of 4.8 GW of TOPCon Solar Cells. Mr. Tesanovich leads the the company’s strategy growth and operational excellence. His decorated career spans two decades in management, business development, marketing, supply chain, product development, operations, and strategy. His big picture vision and strategic implementation has expanded Eagle Group to over a billion-dollar revenue business operating globally. Mr. Tesanovich has helped lead Eagle Group to award winning success being three times awarded to the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America, Houston Business Journals Fastest 50 Middle Market Companies, Inc. 5000 Best Places to Work among additional awards.
A veteran of both the US Army and the renewable energy sector with nearly a quarter of a century of experience bringing the solar industry to scale, and making PV plants more capable. As CTO, Nick is responsible the technological and ecological vison of the company, as well as the cultivation of domestic sources of supply. Silicon Ranch owns and operates–projects that Nick designed over a decade ago, including the first transmission interconnected PV plant in the Southeast. Prior to Silicon Ranch he held positions at Applied Materials and Tesla manufacturing both crystalline and thin film cells and modules.
Nick holds 5 patents in both PV module manufacturing and design, and a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University. He serves as an industry advisor, and reviewer for the Department of Energy’s PACT and DuraMAT consortiums. As well as the Principal Investigator of a DOE funded program exploring the appropriate co-location of solar projects with regenerative cattle ranching.
Jim Wood is the President and Chief Executive Officer of SEG Solar Inc., a Houston, Texas–based, 100% U.S.-owned solar module manufacturer headquartered in Houston, widely recognized as the energy capital of the United States, where he resides. He is a co-founder of the company and is responsible for overall corporate strategy, operations, and commercial activities.
Mr. Wood has over 20 years of experience in the solar industry. Prior to founding SEG Solar, he held senior sales and commercial leadership roles at two Tier 1 solar module manufacturers, with experience spanning utility-scale, commercial, and distributed generation markets. He began his career on the installation side of the industry and was previously a NABCEP-certified solar installer, providing practical experience across both project development and manufacturing.
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