The loan from the U.S. Energy Department, announced Thursday, will be key to funding a $2.2 billion complex that Qcells, a unit of South Korea’s Hanwha Group, is building. The company plans to take polysilicon refined in Washington state and make ingots, wafers and solar cells — the building blocks of finished solar modules — in Cartersville, Georgia, northwest of Atlanta.

President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, besides offering a extra tax credit on American-made solar equipment, lets manufacturers earn incentives for every unit of polysilicon they refine and every wafer, cell and module they make.