Solar manufacturing has never been a particularly reliable business. So why is the US leaning into it at all? On this week’s Zero, Akshat Rathi talks to Jenny Chase, a solar analyst with clean energy research group BloombergNEF, about the industry’s boom-bust cycle, what companies like Qcells are up against and why solar’s rapid growth could even make daytime electricity free. We also hear from Lindsay Cherry, policy manager at Qcells, about how the company plans to achieve its ambitious goals.

US Vice President Kamala Harris tours a Qcells solar panel manufacturing plant in Dalton, Georgia on April 6. In January, QCells announced an investment of $2.5 billion in solar manufacturing in the US. Photographer: Andi Rice/CNP

Original Bloomberg Article