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First Solar has been prolific in its monetisation of 45x manufacturing tax credits. Image: First Solar
US thin-film manufacturer First Solar has revealed another transfer of its 45X manufacturing tax credits in a deal worth around US$750 million.
The cadmium-telluride (CdTe) module producer said in an SEIC filing dated 20 October that it had entered into two separate tax credit sales with an unnamed digital payment company. The deal will increase First Solar’s 45X tax credit sales to date to over US$2 billion.
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Under the first transfer, First Solar will sell tax credits worth US$600 million across two separate payments in October and December 2025.
Under the second “variable” agreement, the module producer will sell a further US$175 million of tax credits. The company said the final total of tax credits that will be transferred under this agreement will be determined at a later date.
First Solar has been prolific in its adoption of 45X, the provision under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that enables US producers of modules and other components to monetise tax credits based on the number of units of hardware they produce. The company was the first to complete a significant 45X transfer agreement in a US$700 million deal last January, and has since executed several more. With this latest deal, its tally has now passed the US$2 billion mark.
The 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit, to give it its full name, fared relatively better than other solar tax credits under the recent ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ legislation.
Unlike the project-based investment tax credit and production tax credit, which are being phased out earlier than initially planned, 45X will continue until 2032. Over that time, the domestic content requirements of 45X will be gradually ratcheted up under ‘Foreign Entity of Concern’ rules, but given its largely US-based supply chain, First Solar will be largely immune from this.
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