The building shell in Laurens County, South Carolina is already up. On September 8, Suniva said it has the money to put a factory inside it.
Suniva says it closed $835 million in combined debt and equity financing, according to a press release filed with the SEC. The package includes senior secured credit facilities from funds managed by Goldman Sachs Alternatives and I Squared Capital, a second lien facility from JBA Asset Management, and equity from Electron Capital Partners, Orion Infrastructure Capital, and Rubric Capital Management, among others.
The new plant is designed for 4.5 GW of annual solar cell production capacity, adding to an existing factory in Norcross, Georgia that already runs at 1 GW. At 5.5 GW combined, the company would go from a niche domestic producer to a scale that could supply a material share of U.S. solar demand. A gigawatt is roughly the generating output of a large power station; the jump from 1 to 5.5 is not incremental.
The company says the Laurens County project will cost about $600 million and is expected to create 564 manufacturing jobs in South Carolina's Upstate region. Completion is expected in late 2027, with a full production ramp in 2028. The building shell is already complete.
The financing is tied to a pending merger. Suniva agreed in June to combine with SUNation Energy in a reverse merger — where Suniva, the private company, effectively takes over SUNation's Nasdaq listing — with the combined entity operating under the Suniva name. Before the deal can close, SUNation stockholders must vote on several items, including raising the authorized share count from 1 billion to 1.5 billion. A registration statement covering the full terms has not yet been filed with the SEC.
Shares closed 90.30% higher at $4.5100, on dollar volume of about $460 million across 614,014 trades. The free float was about 3.5 million shares; reported short volume for the session was about 41.2 million.
The company says long-term offtake agreements with U.S. solar buyers already cover the majority of planned output from the new plant. No customers are named in the release, and no dollar value is given for those agreements — which are what the expansion's revenue case rests on.