The top campaign concern of affordability can’t be solved without reducing the cost of American energy, and T1 Energy CEO Dan Barcelo has a plan to contribute.
Barcelo spoke at a Breitbart News policy event on Wednesday where he emphasized how U.S.-based production of new, advanced manufacturing like solar supports energy affordability and revitalizes American manufacturing, highlighting the role to be played by T1’s own growing operations. The policy discussion followed a panel with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick hosted by Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow and Finance and Economics Editor John Carney as part of an ongoing series.
“Look, Secretary Lutnick gets this, President Trump gets this. This is about bringing back jobs to America. This is about advanced manufacturing,” Barcelo told Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matt Boyle. “This is a different type of manufacturing, and that’s what we’re doing with T1.”
To explain how the changing energy landscape provides opportunities for American manufacturing competitiveness, Barcelo detailed T1 Energy’s current operations, highlighting its plant in Texas. “We own and operate a five-gigawatt plant in Texas. That’s 10 percent of capacity for solar panels in the United States. We own that, we run that,” he said. “We are employing over 1,250 people. We have a very large payroll in the South Dallas area. It’s all about bringing back manufacturing here.”
He explained that the entire solar production process — from raw materials to final modules — can be reshored. “We don’t need to make solar panels in China and import them. We can make them in America, we can make them in Texas,” Barcelo said. “Another part of us is about the entire supply chain. We buy our polysilicon from Hemlock in Michigan. We will soon be buying wafers from Corning, also in Michigan.”
Barcelo also described a new project dubbed “G2 Austin,” which aims to develop high-tech solar cells — the most complex component of the solar module chain — at a repurposed industrial site. “The solar cell is a project which we call G2 Austin,” he said. “We’re in Milam County in Rockdale, Texas. That’s the site of an old Alcoa plant. That plant has a lot of capacity for power, a lot of capacity for water, and we’re repurposing that. It’s just land now. It’s nothing there. We’ll soon have 1,500 high paying automated jobs there.”
He linked the initiative not only to energy security but also to digital infrastructure, saying, “The other point I think is very important, underscoring a lot of this is, how do we fuel power for AI and how do we fuel the data centers America needs to compete?”
Drawing on his background in fossil fuels, Barcelo compared solar development to traditional energy production. “We used to drill for natural gas, drill for oil and deliver that power in the United States, deliver that globally,” he remarked. “If you think of solar manufacturing, you’re basically building the power and you’re building that natural gas field equivalent. But it’s in a solar form.”
He also pointed to solar’s role in stabilizing the energy grid and improving affordability. “That power is critical right now. It is the fastest to market right now. It has one of the lowest costs of development,” Barcelo noted. “And the real important part of solar is when it’s on the grid, it’s zero marginal cost. Texas, last week, half the grid midday is solar. That’s zero marginal cost.”
He concluded by acknowledging the broader mix of energy sources while reinforcing the cost-saving potential of renewables. “Of course, natural gas is important. Of course, coal is important and nuclear. But solar allows for a leveling and bringing down this cost, because we do also have to focus on the affordability of energy deployed.”
This was Breitbart’s first policy event of 2026 after holding similar events in 2025 with Vice President JD Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. Breitbart News partnered with CGCN and the ALFA Institute to put on the event.
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