About 200 shipping containers of factory equipment are due through the Port of Charleston this fall. Their destination is a vacant industrial building on McQueen Boulevard in Summerville, off Jedburg Road between Interstate 26 and U.S. 78.
The containers hold production lines for Translucent Solar, which plans to assemble solar panels in the roughly 283,000-square-foot building and hire 167 people. The Post and Courier has described the company as New York-based.
The company says its first panel should come off the line by the end of 2026. Managing Director Augustus Rylands told WCSC Live 5 in August that full commercial operation on one shift should follow in the first quarter of 2027, with plans to grow to as many as four shifts.
“We’re deep in construction at the moment,” Rylands said then, as contractors worked inside the building.
The company told pv magazine USA it expects to begin commercial shipments in December.
What the plant will make
Translucent will assemble photovoltaic modules, the framed panels that sit on roofs and in solar fields. It will not make the solar cells inside them, at least not yet.
The company plans three sizes, all built with N-type cells, according to pv magazine USA. Residential panels are rated at 450 to 470 watts. Commercial panels are rated at 630 to 650 watts. Utility panels, the largest, are rated at 710 to 730 watts.
The plant is designed for 1.2 gigawatts of annual capacity. The company told pv magazine it expects 600 to 800 megawatts in its first full year.
Translucent says its components are mostly sourced in the United States, with some from Turkey. The company has said it wants to add cell production later. PV Tech reported that the company expects to begin making cells by November 2027, with 1.2 gigawatts of annual capacity.
A building with a long history
The McQueen Industrial Park building has been through several owners. The Post and Courier reported that it previously housed Corning, Caterpillar and BAE Systems.
Caterpillar ran a transmission remanufacturing plant on McQueen Boulevard until 2014. The company announced the closure in 2013, cutting 280 jobs. BAE Systems, the British defense contractor, opened a Summerville facility in 2016 to install protective and communications systems on mine-resistant military vehicles.
The building sits on about 17.5 acres and has an on-site electrical substation, according to a Colliers listing. Translucent is leasing it.
Why Summerville
Rylands told Live 5 the company looked at sites across the country and weighed incentives, available workers and access to the port.
Dorchester County Council unanimously approved a 20-year fee agreement in place of property taxes, the Post and Courier reported. The deal includes a credit worth 20% of those payments for six years to help cover costs such as road and utility work.
Some residents had questions before the vote. At a June council meeting, Councilmember Jay Byars addressed one directly.
“I think some folks are worried this is a solar farm,” Byars said, according to the Post and Courier. He added that it is a manufacturer moving into an existing building.
The company’s stated investment is $15,675,000. Trade publications describe that as a first phase.
Policy and timing
Translucent was founded in 2022 by a team of energy industry veterans, according to its announcement. Rylands told Live 5 the company formed after the Inflation Reduction Act created incentives for domestic solar manufacturing. An earlier plan, a 2022 joint venture with Jordan-based Philadelphia Solar to build a U.S. module line, was announced but never finalized, Solar Power World reported.
Federal trade policy is also part of the math. In August, President Donald Trump ordered minimum import prices for polysilicon and products made from it, along with a 15% tariff on those products, including wafers, solar cells and modules. The measures take effect Dec. 4.
Rylands said the tariffs “give American solar manufacturers like us the long-term certainty needed to invest at scale,” the Post and Courier reported.
The Post and Courier counted Translucent as at least the fourth South Carolina solar manufacturing project announced since spring 2026. Others include ES Foundry in Greenwood, Fortified Solar in Greenville and Suniva in Laurens County.
Who runs it
Rylands is one of three managing directors listed on the company’s website. He was previously chief investment officer at Desert Technologies in Saudi Arabia. The other managing directors are Nour Mousa, a Desert Technologies co-founder, and Mujadid Shah. Chief Technology Officer Nabih Cherradi was overseeing testing of the production equipment at the manufacturer’s site in August, pv magazine reported. Hiring
The company has said it is recruiting for a range of jobs but has not published pay. It was listed among more than 30 employers expected at a Sept. 17 career fair in Summerville run by SC Works Trident and Dorchester County, ABC News 4 reported. Applicants can reach the company through translucent-solar.com.
If the schedule holds, the first panel will roll out of a building where Caterpillar once rebuilt transmissions.
