On October 30th, JinkoSolar announced an investment of $839 million to build a factory in the US that will produce N-type solar cells for its own component production base. The new factory, covering about 480 acres,
will be located in Indiana and is expected to be completed by the end of 2025 with an annual production capacity of 5 GW.

This marks another milestone for JinkoSolar in the US market. In June of this year, shortly after returning to the A-share market, the company announced plans to establish a photovoltaic component production base in
Texas, with an investment of over $250 million and an expected annual production capacity of 5 GW after it starts operations by the end of this year. This is the first time JinkoSolar has established a manufacturing
plant in the US.

Two months after announcing its first US factory, in August of this year, JinkoSolar secured a long-term sales agreement for 7 GW of photovoltaic components, which will be supplied to one of the world’s largest power
service providers, French utility company EDF. This means that in terms of order size and partners, JinkoSolar has taken another solid step forward on its path to enter the US market.

In fact, JinkoSolar is just one of many Chinese companies entering the US market. Since the beginning of this year, leading domestic photovoltaic companies have successively announced plans to invest in photovoltaic
component projects in the US. First, in January of this year, JA Solar announced plans to establish its first factory in Phoenix, Arizona, to produce high-performance solar modules with a maximum annual production
capacity of 2 GW. Trina Solar followed suit and announced in March that it would partner with US clean energy developer Invenergy to build its first 5 GW photovoltaic component factory in Ohio.

Some are entering the market for the first time, while others are continuously increasing their investments. In April of this year, JinkoSolar, which had already established a factory in the US, announced that it would
invest $81.37 million in a 1 GW solar module production line in Florida, which was put into operation in 2018. In the second half of this year, TCL’s subsidiary Maxeon and Tianhe Solar Energy also announced plans to invest
in photovoltaic component factories in the US. For a time, domestic photovoltaic giants all looked towards the US and building factories there became a trend.

The Chinese “photovoltaic army’s” collective entry into the US market is mainly due to trade policies and market potential.

On the policy side, the Biden administration introduced the “Inflation Reduction Act” in 2022, which imposes strict requirements on the localization manufacturing ratio and subsidy scope of photovoltaic component products.
For example, in order to obtain an additional 10% subsidy, it is required that 100% of the
steel used in photovoltaic components and other “manufactured products” come from the United States, and the proportion of domestic manufacturing of finished products should exceed 40%. For projects starting construction
after 2026, the standard will be raised to 55%.

ATS stated in the announcement that this new project can enjoy preferential policies from the US government.

For a long time, Chinese companies have chosen to establish factories in countries such as Thailand and Vietnam and then sell their products to the United States. However, the US Department of Commerce began
anti-circumvention investigations on photovoltaic products from the four Southeast Asian countries last year, and publicly announced the investigation results in August this year: several companies including Longi Solar,
JA Solar, ATS, and BYD Hong Kong were provisionally ruled to have “circumvention behavior”.

Although many companies have stated that this ruling has not had a significant impact on their business, it has once again sent a strong signal to companies: the need to layout overseas supply chains.

Another direct reason for establishing factories in the United States is the huge growth potential of the US photovoltaic market. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s prediction, the United States will add 358 GW of
photovoltaic installations from 2023 to 2030. A report released by global natural resources consulting firm Wood Mackenzie in September shows that the United States added 11.7 GW of photovoltaic installations in the first
half of 2023, a year-on-year increase of 37.7%. It is expected to add 20 GW in the second half of the year, equivalent to the total installation volume in 2022.

Domestic companies are well aware of the incremental space in the US photovoltaic market. Jinko Solar stated during recent investor research that if trade policies are relaxed next year and domestically manufactured
photovoltaic products are gradually put into production, supply chain pressure will be relatively relieved, and it is expected that the demand for new installations in the United States will exceed 40 GW in 2024.

Since the beginning of this year, prices in the domestic photovoltaic industry chain have declined significantly, and overseas business has become an important driving force for future growth of companies. Despite facing
uncertainties in going global, no company is willing to give up in the face of huge market demand.