First Solar posts 58% gross margin in Q3, trims 2026 sales guidance amid post-tariff market shift First Solar has announced financial results for the third quarter of 2026, reporting $1.23 billion in net sales, a 58% gross margin and $571 million in net income. While net sales declined 23% year-over-year due to lower volumes of modules sold to third parties, the company’s gross margin was roughly 20 percentage points higher than the same figure for the third quarter of 2025, and net income rose 25% year-over-year. The company also authorized a new $500 million stock buyback. Due to the slowdown in sales, the company reduced its full-year volume sold forecast to between 16.0 GW and 17.0 GW and lowered its full-year 2026 net sales guidance to between $4.6 billion and $4.9 billion, down from the $4.9 billion to $5.2 billion it reported after Q2. On the company’s third-quarter earnings call, executives outlined how First Solar is adjusting its commercial and operational strategy following the August Section 232 tariff proclamation. The call and following Q&A focused on a number of important topics, including a forthcoming “binary decision” on the future of First Solar’s 1.8 GW Malaysia factory, investments in perovskite technology and how upcoming modules built with the company’s CuRe technology stack up against crystalline silicon PERC and TOPCon competitor in cost. Management also provided comments on ongoing legal disputes regarding the company’s TOPCon intellectual property and a recent warranty lawsuit filed by developer Swift Current Energy.On the earnings call, company CEO Mark Widmar said First Solar will soon file its formal legal response in the Swift Current case and maintained that the company’s warranty terms govern any remediation. “We will stand by and we will support under the parameters of our limited liability warranty the obligations that we have,” Widmar said. “Where people are asking for remedies that are outside the parameters of the warranty, that’s not something that we will do.” Just before the call, First Solar announced a non-exclusive patent licensing agreement with perovskite company CubicPV, adding the rights to use the IP to its existing agreement with Oxford PV. The company plans to begin producing Series 6-form-factor perovskite modules for field testing and durability validation from its Perrysburg, Ohio facility in the first half of 2027. Contracting strategy vs. the spot market First Solar closed the third quarter with a contracted backlog of 44 GW valued at approximately $13.5 billion, with deliveries scheduled through 2030. In the time since its second-quarter update, the company says it recorded 1.4 GW of U.S. bookings at an average selling price of about 36 cents per watt. Despite the slower pace of new bookings, CFO Alex Bradley emphasized that the company is planning to avoid selling to the spot market for its international volume and is instead pivoting toward project-specific contracts with defined delivery schedules rather than the multi-year framework agreements across multiple projects for very large customers for which First Solar is known. “We don’t want to be in the spot market. That’s a challenging place for us to be,” Bradley said on the call. “If we move to more of a project-based model, where there is a certainty around an individual project, the timing of that project and delivery schedule, that allows me to plan on the operational side much more efficiently.” Bradley added that project-specific contracting helps reduce working capital requirements and warehousing costs, even if it slows the rate at which multi-year backlog is added. Pricing and Section 232 concerns Widmar described the August Section 232 proclamation as “a meaningful shift for U.S. solar manufacturing,” and noted that nearly 80% of First Solar’s global manufacturing footprint will be located in the United States by 2027. “Section 232 represents a structural change in how the United States approaches solar manufacturing,” the CEO said. “As a technology company and the only fully integrated utility-scale solar manufacturer without dependency on a Chinese crystalline silicon supply chain, we believe we are structurally positioned to benefit from this environment.” Still, the company says near-term procurement and price discovery have been slowed by several market pressures. Widmar noted that developers are holding back on module procurement for 2029 and 2030 as they navigate through challenges with interconnection and pushback from local communities around data center deployment, wait for further guidance around Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) rules and face uncertainty around how Section 232 minimum import prices and anti-stockpiling rules will be enforced. A binary decision in Malaysia Those trade and tariff pressures have weighed most heavily on First Solar’s international Series 6 production in Southeast Asia. While the company’s Vietnam facility is slated to supply semi-finished Series 6 modules to its newly inaugurated South Carolina finishing plant, its Malaysia factory continues to produce finished international modules. Widmar said the company expects to make a “binary” operational decision on the Malaysia facility in the first half of 2027: either run the plant at full or near-full capacity, or shut down production altogether. Because modules produced in Malaysia do not qualify for U.S. Section 45X manufacturing tax credits and face freight and tariff costs, the company says it does not expect either outcome to materially affect its run-rate earnings profile. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/10/30/first-solar-posts-58-gross-margin-in-q3-trims-2026-sales-guidance-amid-post-tariff-market-shift/ #firstsolar #grossmargin #salesguidance #swiftcurrent #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

In case you missed it: Solar stories of the week U.S. solar manufacturers speak on executing profitability and scale as domestic capacity crosses 100 GW Industry leaders at pv magazine USA Week 2026 tackled the hard realities of workforce training, upstream cell integration, navigating evolving trade policies, and more. Anker Solix S5000 deep-dive review: 5 kWh on wheels, tested through a real power outage An engineer and home-energy enthusiast tests out the Anker Solix S5000 in California hillside, and documents it all in a deep dive review for ESS News. Solar and storage saved California $2.5 billion and Texas $3.5 billion this summer New analysis shows record electricity demand met at sharply lower wholesale prices across America’s two largest markets – but utility transmission and distribution grid charges keep residential electricity prices high. Solar industry coalition opposes $67 billion Dominion-NextEra merger as proposed Solar and storage industry groups are calling for interconnection reforms as conditions of the proposed $67 billion merger, arguing that the deal could create additional barriers for residential solar and battery installations. Earnings roundup: Corning grows, Enphase stumbles, Tesla on autopilot, Nextpower sets records Four major U.S. clean energy companies reported mixed third-quarter financial results this week, reflecting booming demand for utility-scale equipment and grid storage alongside a struggling residential solar market hampered by the loss of federal tax credits. Column sponsor: CAB Solar The leader in above-ground cable management. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/10/30/in-case-you-missed-it-solar-stories-of-the-week-1030/ #solar #ankersolix #usaweek #industry #cabsolar #california #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

SEG Solar plans HJT cell plant next to existing Texas facilities SEG Solar, a global solar manufacturer, has signed a land agreement for a planned $950 million, 4-GW heterojunction (HJT) solar cell plant at the Tomball Industrial Campus in the greater Houston area. The facility is expected to create more than 700 local jobs and is planned to come online in two 2 GW phases scheduled… The post SEG Solar plans HJT cell plant next to existing Texas facilities appeared first on Solar Power World. https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2026/10/seg-solar-plans-hjt-cell-plant-next-to-existing-texas-facilities/ #segsolar #cellplant #hjt #texas #industrialcampus #tomballindustrial #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Op-ed: Plug-in solar expands access to renewables, but needs a strong safety framework Access to plug-in solar is becoming increasingly available across North America. As more consumers explore technologies such as balcony solar and plug-in photovoltaic (PIPV) systems, these emerging solutions have the potential to make renewable energy more accessible and support broader participation in the energy transition. Solar remains one of the most accessible and promising renewable… The post Op-ed: Plug-in solar expands access to renewables, but needs a strong safety framework appeared first on Solar Power World. https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2026/10/plug-in-solar-expands-access-to-renewables-but-needs-strong-safety-framework/ #solar #northamerica #access #pipv #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

What 11 islands reveal about the real bottleneck in renewable mini-grids Islands are frequently held up as the proving ground for 100% renewable electricity — contained systems, clear stakeholder lines, and in most cases no main grid to fall back on. A new IEA PVPS Task 18 report puts that reputation to the test, examining 11 islands that have already reached, or come close to, very high renewable shares, from the 88-person village of Apolima in Samoa to Lolland in Denmark, home to more than 57,000 people and connected to the wider Danish grid. What is clear is that the technology to run an island almost entirely on renewables already exists and works in wildly different configurations. What determines whether a project actually gets there is overwhelmingly social, political and organisational, not technical not technology alone, but how well it is combined with the right social, political, economic and organisational conditions. Eleven islands, no single template The report’s strongest evidence for this is that there is no single definition of what “success” looks like in practice. Kodiak Island in Alaska runs on a hydro-wind hybrid under a member-owned utility with an advanced operations culture, reaching 99-100% renewable supply. Samsø in Denmark gets there almost entirely through community-owned wind turbines and citizen investment, and, being connected to the Danish grid, does not depend on local storage . Yakushima in Japan reaches 100% renewable electricity using nothing but small hydropower simply because its mountainous terrain and rainfall happen to match demand. Apolima runs on a standalone solar system with no storage at all, because the village is small enough that it doesn’t need any. Tokelau’s fully solar, battery-backed system exists because of sustained New Zealand aid funding, while in Spain’s Canary Islands, El Hierro combines wind power with pumped hydro storage, and La Graciosa runs a wind-PV-battery hybrid whose dispatch strategies are still being actively optimised during operation. The report treats this variety as the central finding rather than a footnote: there is no universal guideline. A hybrid wind-pumped-hydro system that works for El Hierro would be overbuilt for Apolima; a donor-financed model that got Tokelau to full solar supply wouldn’t translate to a utility-led island like Kodiak. What does recur across all eleven, regardless of technology mix or island size, is a specific set of non-technical conditions. Preparation is the key, not construction To find those conditions, the authors built a four-phase, five-category success-factor matrix formed by Preparation, Design, Implementation, and Monitoring & Evaluation crossed with Social, Political, Technical, Economic and Environmental dimensions, and then populated it using a literature review of more than 60 academic publications, case study analysis, and five in-depth interviews with island practitioners. That process surfaced 111 distinct success factors, and the single clearest pattern in the data is where they cluster: nearly half of all identified success factors sit in the preparation phase, before a single turbine or panel goes up. The report describes this as community education and awareness campaigns, resource and grid assessments, early political alignment, and financing groundwork all happening in parallel, well ahead of system design. Islands that invested heavily here — Lolland, Samsø, El Hierro — built the shared understanding and institutional readiness that made later phases smoother. What should developers and donors learn from this? Under-resourcing the planning and engagement phase is one of the clearest predictable causes of later friction, even when the technical design itself is sound. Four factors show up almost everywhere Of the 111 factors identified, 13 were marked as key success factors based on how often they recurred across multiple interviews, and four stand out as close to universal – two social and political, two technical. The first is the presence of local champions or leadership figures, people who mobilise community support, maintain momentum across years-long timelines, and sit at the intersection of community, political and technical actors. Samsø’s transition is presented as a textbook case of this, cited as the connective tissue between local identity, citizen investment and the eventual wind build-out. The second is stakeholder engagement sustained across the entire project lifecycle, not just at the planning stage. The report is explicit that this factor appears in every phase it tracked, making it one of the most cross-cutting success factors in the dataset. Even highly technical decisions, the authors note, such as which generation technology to select or where to reinforce the grid, ultimately depend on stakeholder trust to be accepted and to stick. The technical backbone None of this means engineering is secondary. Technical factors make up the largest single category in the dataset, at 41 of the 111 total, and the two remaining near-universal factors are technical – in fact the most frequently mentioned ones: long-term system planning, and grid strengthening specifically for variable renewable energy integration. The report also credits concrete operational practices for sustaining high renewable shares once systems are running, such as Kodiak’s real-time balancing of wind and hydro output and King Island’s use of flywheels and dynamic resistors to stabilise a wind-PV-battery-diesel hybrid. The report calls technical robustness and tailored system design the backbone of successful island transitions. But technology alone does not decide the outcome: what separates islands that reach and sustain high renewable shares from those that stall is whether a sound technical design is matched by the social, political and financial conditions that allow it to be built and operated as intended. A caveat on replicability However, the report’s final section makes clear that its own findings are not a plug-and-play checklist. The authors note that the underlying preconditions behind their 13 key success factors — such as a local institution able to sustain planning over several years, stakeholders with enough continuity to stay engaged throughout a multi-year process, and financing that isn’t entirely dependent on short-term donor cycles — are themselves unevenly distributed. Where those preconditions are weak the same interventions tend to stall rather than fail outright: stakeholder engagement loses momentum without a champion to sustain it, tariff reforms struggle to attract investment under unstable regulation, and technical designs proven on well-resourced islands are hard to replicate without reliable supply chains or trained O&M staff. The authors are explicit that this replication gap is likely to hit hardest on smaller, more remote, lower-income islands, and disproportionately in the Global South, where the institutional and financial foundations underlying this report’s own case studies are least likely to already exist. Author: Ignacio Landivar The report can be downloaded at this link. This article is part of a monthly column by the IEA PVPS programme. It was contributed by IEA PVPS Task 18, which examines how digital tools can be strategically deployed throughout the entire off-grid project value chain. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/10/29/what-11-islands-reveal-about-the-real-bottleneck-in-renewable-mini-grids/ #pvpstask #apolima #political #social #denmark #hierro #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

DTE utility program funded a 132-MW Michigan solar project DTE Energy’s 132-MW Fish Creek Solar Park near Sheridan, Michigan, is now operational. The $268 million development was fully funded by customers who voluntarily participate in DTE’s MIGreenPower program. The solar park can generate enough energy to power approximately 30,000 homes. “Our customers expect us to keep the lights on and keep bills as affordable… The post DTE utility program funded a 132-MW Michigan solar project appeared first on Solar Power World. https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2026/10/dte-utility-customers-funded-a-132-mw-michigan-solar-project/ #dte #solar #fishcreek #funded #dteenergy #park #sheridan #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Earnings roundup: Corning grows, Enphase stumbles, Tesla on autopilot, Nextpower sets records Companies in the solar industry are reporting mixed results as they reveal performance for Q3 2026. While demand and revenues remain high for upstream suppliers and utility-scale players, companies with heavy exposure to the small-scale distributed market are struggling as the downward trend continues following the end of the Section 25D tax credits last year. Solar tracker company Nextpower hit record numbers for revenue and bookings as it expands beyond its historical core business Demand for energy storage products from Tesla has the company’s Megapack battery capacity nearly booked for 2027 Corning’s solar revenue was up 37% year-over-year and demand is looking strong in the wake of Section 232 tariffs Enphase delivered revenue numbers lower than expected and issued lower guidance for Q4 Below are details about each company’s recent financial performance. Nextpower sets records Nextpower (formerly Nextracker) built its business around single-axis solar trackers, but the company’s latest earnings highlight how rapidly it is expanding into new, non-tracker product categories, including energy storage, eBOS, foundations and inverters. In fact, non-tracker products accounted for roughly 22% of revenue and over 20% of bookings during the quarter (up from 14% in prior periods). Overall, Nexpower reported a record $1.11 billion in revenue, representing a 23% year-over-year increase in sales. Due to the strong quarter, Nextpower raised its full-year fiscal 2027 guidance across the board, now projecting revenue of $4.2 billion to $4.45 billion and more than $500 million in free cash flow. “We ended the quarter with over $1 billion of cash and cash equivalents and no debt, while funding new acquisitions and returning approximately $162 million to shareholders through share repurchases,” said Nextpower CFO Chuck Boynton in a statement. “We look forward to sharing more about our long-term strategy and financial framework at our Capital Markets Day in Las Vegas on November 16th.” Tesla steady as she goes Tesla reported a total revenue of $28.0 billion, representing a flat performance compared to the prior year. The company deployed 13.7 GWh of energy storage during the quarter, bringing its 2026 year-to-date total to 36 GWh. Despite strong deployments, revenue from Tesla’s energy generation and storage business fell 16% year-over-year to $2.88 billion. Tesla’s energy storage business is poised to set a new record in 2026. | Image: pv magazine USA During the company’s earnings call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that demand remains “very strong,” noting that Megapack inventory is nearly sold out through the end of 2027 due to heavy demand for global data center infrastructure. The company also began delivering Megapacks featuring its own in-house LFP batteries. Tesla stayed mum during the earnings presentation about its plans to manufacture solar cells in the United States. Tesla officials mentioned the word “solar” only once, with CFO Vaibhav Taneja sharing that the company planned to increase its CapEx spend over the next few years as it does “a lot of hardcore, real grunt work to get production facilities up and running.” Taneja said that grunt work would include the addition of new solar manufacturing capacity. Corning solar growing, but ramping slowly The solar segment at Corning is booming, but the company says it isn’t done yet. Although it represented just 8.6% of the company’s overall $5.08 billion in revenue for Q3, Corning’s solar business grew 37% year-over-year, and the company expects it to eventually deliver $3 billion in annual revenue, with margins greater than the company’s average. But first comes some growing pains. Although the segment’s sales grew, the company reported a net loss on its solar business of $7 million for the quarter, compared to a $30 million net income in the same period last year. Management noted that the production ramp at its solar wafer and module facilities has been slower than anticipated, which is weighing on current profitability. They expect output and profitability to improve slowly and steadily as productivity increases. Enphase mired in the resi doldurms Despite its own forays into new businesses (the company just reported a successful test of its IQ Solid-State Transformer aimed at AI data centers, which converts 13.8 kV AC power to 800 VDC), Enphase’s core microinverter and battery businesses are tied to residential solar, which has been the lowest-performing segment in the broader U.S. solar industry since the end of the Section 25D tax credits at the end of 2025. The company’s total revenue for Q3 2026 was $293.3 million, down 28.5% year-over-year from $410.4 million in Q3 2025. In addition, Enphase issued soft guidance for Q4 2026, driven by persistent high interest rates and ongoing weakness in residential solar. In the company’s earnings call, ROTH Capital partners analyst Philip Shen asked about the company’s 2027 outlook, noting that his firm had just released numbers that anticipate lower revenues in the coming year even compared to the historically-down 2026. In response to the question, Enphase COO Badrinarayanan Kothandaraman noted it was “difficult for us to see how 2027 is,” and pointed to high interest rates and unclear guidance about FEOC restrictions as a main driver of that uncertainty. Shen’s organization has historically been bullish on Enphase, but the firm recently downgraded its opinion of the company to neutral based on the recent earnings and guidance. “We continue to think highly of this management team, and we applaud how the company has navigated these challenging times,” ROTH analysts wrote in their post-earnings report on the company, but said the downgrade was necessary because “[t]here are just so many variables that are out of management’s control, including elevated/rising interest rates, elevated/rising commodity prices, Treasury’s FEOC/PFE guidance, and deteriorating AI sentiment.” Still, Enphase management said the company sees a path to success in the coming year, anticipating roughly 50% growth in residential battery shipments, a growth in commercial revenue from around $30 million in 2026 to over $100 million in 2027 and broad uptake of its bidirectional EV charging solution from major automotive OEMs. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/10/29/earnings-roundup-corning-grows-enphase-stumbles-tesla-on-autopilot-nextpower-sets-records/ #tesla #nextpower #setsrecords #demand #solar #section #megapack #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

RE+ will host another clean energy job fair this year Job seekers hoping to launch or advance a career in clean energy can connect with employers and explore new opportunities at the RE+ Clean Energy Job Fair on Nov. 18, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Hosted by GRID Alternatives, the Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy (WRISE) and Green Jobs Board, the fair… The post RE+ will host another clean energy job fair this year appeared first on Solar Power World. https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2026/10/re-will-host-another-clean-energy-job-fair-this-year/ #cleanenergy #energyjob #jobfair #conventioncenter #jobsboard #sustainableenergy #lasvegas #gridalternatives #renewableindustries #wrise #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

SEG Solar secures land for planned 4 GW HJT solar cell facility in Texas SEG Solar secured land for a planned $950 million, 4 GW heterojunction (HJT) solar cell plant at its Tomball Industrial Campus in the greater Houston area. The multi-phase development is expected to create more than 700 local jobs and is scheduled to come online in two 2 GW phases, targeted for 2028 and 2029. The cell plant will sit directly adjacent to SEG’s operational 4 GW Tomball #1 module facility and its 4.6 GW Tomball #2 module facility, which is currently under construction. Co-locating the cell lines will bring cell, module, and balance of module production together in one location alongside warehousing, a research and development center, a certified testing laboratory, and planned EVA film and junction box manufacturing lines. The announcement represents the next step in the company’s domestic vertical integration strategy. Earlier this year, SEG opened its Tomball #1 assembly facility, scaling up crystalline-silicon production in Texas as part of a push to build out domestic supply capacity. Following the site opening, the manufacturer launched production of its first commercial-scale HJT modules at the secondary facility, establishing the high-efficiency technology as a central component of its U.S. manufacturing footprint. Supplying Texas-assembled modules with domestic HJT cells will allow project developers and asset owners to meet federal domestic content requirements under the Inflation Reduction Act while securing dedicated supply chains. “Bringing HJT cell manufacturing to the U.S. will give customers a more domestic supply chain with clearer sourcing and a single company standing behind the product,” said Jim Wood, chief executive officer of SEG Solar, who recently spoke on U.S. manufacturing expansion at pv magazine USA Week 2026. “As the only U.S. company dedicated to integrated domestic vertical manufacturing, SEG will continue to strengthen our U.S. operations and innovation.” Founded in 2021, the Houston-headquartered manufacturer reported shipping over 7.5 GW of solar modules globally through the end of 2025, reaching an annual module production capacity of 6.5 GW. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/10/29/seg-solar-secures-land-for-planned-4-gw-hjt-solar-cell-facility-in-texas/ #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

SnapNrack increases domestic manufacturing with new Texas factory Solar mounting and racking manufacturer SnapNrack, a subsidiary of Sunrun, will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Nov. 4 to celebrate the opening of its new facility in El Paso, Texas. The new operational site has onshored SnapNrack’s assembly and distribution operations from its former facility in Juarez, Mexico. By bringing assembly and distribution directly into… The post SnapNrack increases domestic manufacturing with new Texas factory appeared first on Solar Power World. https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2026/10/snapnrack-increases-domestic-manufacturing-with-new-texas-factory/ #texas #mexico #paso #sunrun #juarez #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit