The problem
Middle East solar developers buy virtually all their panels from overseas — paying in freight, carbon, and lead time — while the region’s best solar resource sits under factories that add no local value. Jordan wanted a domestic champion that could both manufacture and develop.
How it works
Philadelphia Solar makes UL-listed, Tier-1-recognised mono-crystalline modules at its factory in the Al Qastal Industrial Area near Amman, and acts as project developer too: it built the Middle East’s first utility-scale solar-plus-storage plant and secured a long-term PPA with Jordan’s National Electric Power Company for a 68 MW facility. In 2022 it formed a joint venture with US-based Translucent Energy to manufacture Philadelphia Solar modules in America.
Pain points
Total dependence on imported modules, logistics-driven cost and carbon, developers unable to claim Jordan’s 15% feed-in premium for Jordanian-origin systems, and utilities that would only buy panels with a proven field record.
Business model
Two engines: selling modules through 220+ distributors into 50-plus countries, and developing, co-owning, and selling power from utility-scale plants under long-term PPAs.
Challenges
The cost stack still starts in Asia — cells and wafers come from Thailand — so margins track global polysilicon and freight cycles set by far larger Chinese rivals. And the planned 1.2-GW American plant means executing manufacturing on a new continent with a new supply chain.
Funding
- Raised: none publicly disclosed.
- Valuation: none.
Latest — November 2022
In November 2022 Solar Power World reported Philadelphia Solar’s joint venture with Translucent Energy to bring its modules to the US market, targeting a US manufacturing arm by end of year and full 1.2-GW American production by 2024, with CCO Mohammad Shehadeh framing exports-then-local-factory as the company’s transformative next step.