What did Suniva actually announce?

On 9 September 2026 Suniva said it had raised US$835 million in debt and equity finance for a 4.5 GW passivated emitter rear contact (PERC) solar cell plant in Laurens County, South Carolina. The plant takes the company's operational cell capacity from 1 GW to 5.5 GW. The building shell is already complete, construction is due to finish in 2027 and commercial operations are expected in 2028.

Why do the numbers differ - US$835 million, US$600 million and US$350 million?

They measure three different things. US$835 million is the total debt and equity raised in this round. Around US$600 million is the figure Suniva now gives for the investment the facility itself represents. US$350 million was the company's own estimate for the facility back in April 2026, when the project was first announced. A financing round is normally larger than a single plant's capital cost, and cost estimates move between announcement and construction, so the three figures are not in conflict.

Is PERC worse than TOPCon?

Not worse in the sense of unreliable - PERC is the platform on which most of the world's installed solar fleet was built, and it is well characterised. It is behind on the metrics that matter in hot, high-irradiance markets: n-type cells such as TOPCon and HJT generally show a flatter temperature coefficient, less light-induced degradation and higher bifacial gain. Suniva's choice is a commercial and legal decision about the US market, not a technical claim that PERC has caught up.

Does this change what modules I can buy in the UAE?

No. Suniva is building for the US market behind Section 232 tariffs and has already signed long-term offtake for most of the plant's output, so none of these cells are aimed at the Gulf. UAE buyers continue to source n-type TOPCon modules from Chinese and Southeast Asian lines. The indirect effect is that the world's module supply is splitting into a US track and a rest-of-world track, and specifications written for one do not automatically apply to the other.

Technology14 Sept 20268 min read

PERC vs TOPCon: Suniva funds a 4.5 GW US cell fab

Nikita LutsenkoFounder & CEO, SOLTECH

PERC vs TOPCon: Suniva raises US$835 million for a 4.5 GW solar cell factory in South Carolina

Suniva raised US$835 million on 9 September 2026 for a 4.5 GW cell plant in South Carolina - and is building it on PERC, not TOPCon. Here is why.

PERC vs TOPCon is now a commercial question, not just a technical one. On 9 September 2026 US cell maker Suniva said it had raised US$835 million in debt and equity for a 4.5 GW PERC cell plant in Laurens County, South Carolina. The plant lifts its cell capacity from 1 GW to 5.5 GW, and it will not make TOPCon.

Key parameters of the Suniva South Carolina cell plant

Parameter	Value	Source
Announcement date	9 September 2026	PV Tech
Finance raised	US$835 million in debt and equity	PV Tech
Stated project investment	About US$600 million, up from a US$350 million estimate in April 2026	PV Tech
Nameplate capacity	4.5 GW of cells	PV Tech
Cell technology	PERC (p-type passivated emitter rear contact)	Matt Card, Suniva president and COO, to PV Tech
Location	Laurens County, South Carolina, USA	PV Tech
Company capacity after ramp	From 1 GW to 5.5 GW of operational cell capacity	PV Tech
Named investors	Lion Point Capital (largest shareholder); funds from I Squared Capital and Goldman Sachs Alternatives	PV Tech
Offtake	Long-term agreements cover the majority of planned output; buyers not disclosed	Suniva, via PV Tech
Construction status	Building shell complete; completion due 2027, commercial operations 2028	PV Tech
US cell vs module capacity	26.5 GW of cell capacity in operation against 77.3 GW of module capacity	PV Tech Research

Why a new fab in 2026 would choose PERC over TOPCon

The reason Suniva gives is litigation, not physics. Suniva president and COO Matt Card told PV Tech that patent uncertainty around tunnel oxide passivated contact cells drove the decision when the company restarted production in 2024, and that the logic still holds.

"It's no secret that TOPCon has become one of the most litigated solar technologies on the planet," Card said.

The disputes he is describing are real and ongoing, and they involve some of the largest names in the industry: T1 Energy, First Solar, which holds a number of US TOPCon patents, and Chinese manufacturers including Trina Solar. For a company raising several hundred million dollars against a single production line, an injunction risk is a financing risk. PERC has no comparable patent overhang in the United States, which is why Card calls it a "workhorse" product there.

That position is unusual by global standards. Analyst firm Clean Energy Associates described PERC as obsolete in Europe last year, and US cell manufacturer ES Foundry has said it will move to n-type technology in future. Suniva has gone the other way, and in 2025 signed a PERC research agreement with German research centre ISC Konstanz.

What PERC and TOPCon do differently in Gulf heat

The gap that matters in the UAE is thermal, not peak-efficiency. n-type cells such as TOPCon and heterojunction generally carry a flatter temperature coefficient than p-type PERC, meaning they lose less output for every degree the cell rises above test conditions. On a July rooftop in Dubai, where module temperatures run far above the 25 C of the lab, that difference shows up in the annual yield rather than on the datasheet headline.

The second gap is bifacial gain. n-type cells typically have a higher bifaciality factor, so on a reflective surface - a white membrane roof, light gravel, a carport over pale paving - they recover more from the rear side. The third is degradation behaviour: p-type silicon is the substrate associated with light and elevated temperature induced degradation, and mitigating it has always been a manufacturing discipline rather than a solved problem.

None of this makes PERC a bad product. It is the most thoroughly field-proven cell architecture in the industry, with two decades of degradation data behind it. It means the choice is a trade, and in a market where ambient temperatures sit above 45 C for months, the trade tilts towards n-type.

The SOLTECH view

This announcement does not change anything a rooftop owner in the UAE can buy next month, and we would rather say so than manufacture a connection. What it does is confirm that the global cell market is separating into two technology tracks, and that is worth understanding before you read a spec sheet.

For a villa or warehouse owner in the UAE: the practical takeaway is a purchasing check. If a quote in this market offers PERC modules at a visible discount, that is a legitimate product, not a scam - but ask for the temperature coefficient, the bifaciality factor and the year-25 performance warranty figure, and compare them line by line against the n-type alternative. In Gulf conditions the cheaper module can be the more expensive kilowatt-hour. Our own standard specification stays n-type for exactly this reason; see how we choose panels and what a system costs in Dubai.

For EPC contractors: stop treating US technology news as a forecast for your own bill of materials. Section 232 duties and TOPCon patent exposure are jurisdiction-specific, and a supply decision that is rational in South Carolina is not rational in Abu Dhabi. The one item worth importing from this story is contractual: ask your module supplier for a written patent indemnity. It costs nothing to request and it is the clause that matters if litigation ever crosses borders.

For investors: the number to watch is not Suniva's 4.5 GW, it is the 26.5 GW of US cell capacity against 77.3 GW of module capacity. That gap is the reason capital is flowing into cell plants, and it is being closed with committed offtake rather than merchant risk - Suniva has pre-sold most of this plant. We read that as a healthy signal for manufacturing discipline and a neutral one for module prices outside the US, where the supply glut has a different cause entirely. We would not extrapolate any Gulf module price movement from this news, and we are wary of anyone who does.

Related reading: why HJT is overtaking TOPCon in the US factory pipeline, the Section 232 price floor on imported modules, and our equipment range. If you are starting from scratch, read how a SOLTECH project works.

Sources

SOLTECH Solar Wiki · General information, not a design document. System-specific numbers always come from a site assessment. ← All articles

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