A solar manufacturer walked away from 400 million dollars in potential tax credits
Meyer Burger canceled its Colorado solar cell plant months after breaking ground, even with up to 1.4 billion dollars in IRA manufacturing credits on the table. Tax credits alone were not enough to make the project's underlying economics work.
August 2024 · North America
Retrospective analysis of August 2024. Published August 2026.
Meyer Burger announced on 26 August 2024 that it was canceling plans for a 2 gigawatt solar cell manufacturing plant in Colorado Springs, a $403.5 million investment the Swiss-German manufacturer had said would create 380 jobs and, over the life of the plant from 2024 through 2032, could have qualified for up to $1.4 billion in US manufacturing tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act. The company said construction was no longer financially viable and paired the cancellation with a broader restructuring, including pausing a planned 0.7 gigawatt expansion of its module plant in Goodyear, Arizona, and shifting cell supply for that Arizona facility back to its existing plant in Thalheim, Germany rather than building new US cell capacity.
The Signal
Meyer Burger canceled its $403.5 million, 2 GW Colorado Springs solar cell plant on 26 August 2024, walking away from up to $1.4 billion in potential IRA manufacturing tax credits because it said construction was no longer financially viable.
Why It Matters
Manufacturing tax credits reduce the cost of production once a facility is operating, they do not by themselves cover the upfront construction capital or guarantee the facility clears its cost of capital. This cancellation is a concrete data point that tax credit availability alone was not sufficient to make a specific project's construction economics work, a distinction that matters for how much weight IRA credits alone should carry in underwriting similar manufacturing investment decisions.
Capital Implication
Projects modeling IRA manufacturing tax credits as a primary source of project viability, rather than as a return enhancer on top of construction economics that already work, should treat this cancellation as a caution specific to that modeling approach, not proof the credits themselves are unreliable.
Development Implication
The shift back to Meyer Burger's existing German cell capacity to supply the Arizona module plant is itself informative, it says the company found it cheaper to keep an operating European facility running and ship cells across the Atlantic than to complete a new US cell plant already under construction, a real signal about relative construction and operating costs at that specific moment.
What We Are Watching
- Whether Meyer Burger's broader restructuring stabilizes the company or leads to further asset sales.
- Other announced US solar manufacturing projects' progress against their original construction timelines and credit assumptions.
- Whether policy changes to manufacturing credit structures address the specific construction financing gap this cancellation highlighted.
- Meyer Burger cancels US solar cell plant, announces restructuring, pv magazine
- Solar cell manufacturer halts $400M Colorado plant, Utility Dive
