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How Georgia became America's green-manufacturing capital

Photo collage featuring  map of Georgia with Atlanta and Dalton marked, a photo of the Qcells Dalton Factory, and a row of solar panels
Catherine Boudreau for BI; Alyssa Powell/BI
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When Robert Howey joined the US Navy right after high school, he didn't expect to return home anytime soon.

Howey, now 30, grew up in northwestern Georgia near Dalton, a small city known as the "carpet capital of the world." If he'd stayed in the area, he likely would have pursued a career in the carpet industry.

"That's one of the reasons why I wanted to leave," Howey told Business Insider.

Howey spent four years as an aerographer's mate analyzing the conditions above and below the ocean. But after being stationed in Japan during the Fukushima earthquake in 2016, he realized the military wasn't his long-term career.

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He missed home and moved back to Dalton, where a job in carpet manufacturing was indeed the best-paying option. That was until 2018, when Howey heard about a new company moving into Dalton. A local staffing agency was recruiting for Qcells, a solar-panel manufacturing company owned by the South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group.

"I didn't even know what a solar panel was," Howey, now a master training coordinator at Qcells, said. "In the beginning, it was just about getting a job where I could grow. Now I believe in the mission of completely clean energy."

Howey is among the 1,800 employees Qcells has hired since opening a solar assembly plant in 2019. The company finished an expansion in October, and it plans to open another factory in Cartersville, about an hour south of Dalton, to make smaller parts of solar panels, including ingots, wafers, and cells. Those parts are currently being imported from South Korea and Malaysia.

An employee at Qcells inspects a solar panel on the factory floor.
Qcells has hired at least 1,800 employees since opening a solar assembly plant in Dalton in 2019.Catherine Boudreau/Business Insider

Qcells is part of a broader transformation of Georgia's economy into a renewable-energy manufacturing hub, accelerated by tax breaks in the Inflation Reduction Act that President Joe Biden signed in August 2022. Since then, more than $15 billion worth of investment has been announced in the state – the second-largest amount behind North Carolina, according to E2, a nonpartisan business group that advocates climate policy. Most of the money is for new battery plants to supply Georgia's growing electric-vehicle sector, while about $2.6 billion is set to go toward solar manufacturing, led by Qcells. E2 has estimated the projects could create 15,400 jobs statewide.

All the activity has made Georgia a key testing ground for the Biden administration's promise that tackling the climate crisis would create good-paying jobs and help reshore American manufacturing. Though companies have announced billions of dollars' worth of investments, efforts to build a domestic supply chain of solar panels and electric vehicles are still in their infancy and face stiff competition from China.

Aggressive recruitment

Experts in economic and workforce development say it's no accident this manufacturing is taking off in Georgia.

Bob Keefe, the executive director of E2, said southeastern states view economic development as "a blood sport." Attracting new companies is a priority for leaders in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and the states typically offer generous tax breaks.

Keefe added that land and labor in the Southeast tend to be more affordable, in part because few workers are unionized. Many workers are also already skilled in manufacturing.

Beyond Qcells, the German auto-parts maker Gedia opened a factory in Dalton to supply the burgeoning EV industry in Georgia and the broader Southeast. In nearby Cartersville, two South Korean conglomerates, SK On and Hyundai, are building a battery plant to supply the electric vehicles Hyundai plans to assemble at a massive new complex in Savannah; both sites are expected to open in 2025. India's Rayzon Solar, which makes solar panels, chose Atlanta for its first US factory. SolarCycle, which reclaims old solar panels to make new ones, in February announced plans for a glass factory.

SK On and Hyundai's battery factory under construction in Cartersville, Georgia.
SK On and Hyundai are building an electric vehicle battery factory in Cartersville, Georgia.Catherine Boudreau/Business Insider

Pat Wilson, the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development, told BI that recruiting solar and electric-vehicle companies was strategic. Wilson said that on a trip to Germany his department organized with Gov. Brian Kemp shortly after he took office in 2019, executives they met with at Porsche and Mercedes-Benz talked at length about electric vehicles.

Qcells had already selected Dalton for its new solar-panel factory by the time Kemp was elected. Wilson said that was partly because of Georgia's decadeslong business relationship with South Korea, where the state established an office in 1985.

Wilson said he met with SK On's officials several times before it looked to open a battery factory in the Southeast. SK On opened two battery plants in Commerce, Georgia, in 2018 and hired some 3,000 workers, though it recently laid off more than 100 employees as automakers slowed EV investments, the Financial Times reported.

Beyond the ties to South Korean conglomerates, Georgia invests more than $100 million dollars a year in workforce training, budget documents show. A state-funded program known as Quick Start can be tailored to the technical skills companies are looking for and offered for free to workers. Georgia's network of 22 technical colleges also partners with local companies to prepare students for work.

Heidi Popham, the president of Georgia Northwestern Technical College, said the state agency that oversees that network of technical colleges developed an electric-vehicle-technician certificate, given the massive growth of that industry. She expects her college will offer that certification soon.

"The students in our automotive-technician program that work on the vehicles will have to have those skills," Popham told BI.

China looms large

Georgia's strategy in recruitment and workforce development is only part of the reason for the boom in renewable-energy-technology companies.

In 2018, President Donald Trump slapped tariffs on imports of solar panels and cells, with the goal of helping US manufacturers compete with cheaper imports from China and Southeast Asia. The tariffs were requested by two American companies, including Suniva, which had once been the fastest-growing solar company in the US before filing for bankruptcy protection in 2017.

Foreign companies shipping to the US, including Hanwha, were forced to reevaluate their supply chains.