Production to Help Meet Rising Demand in the US for Solar Equipment
Solar tracker specialist Nextracker and steel fabricator BCI Steel have reopened a shuttered steel factory in the US state of Pennsylvania to produce tracker equipment for large-scale solar power plants.
BCI’s “historic” Bethlehem steel processing facility in Leetsdale, 11 miles from downtown Pittsburgh, will manufacture the components for growing solar energy markets in Pennsylvania, Indiana, New York and Ohio.
Solar trackers, commonly deployed in larger PV facilities, are devices that allow solar panels to follow the path of the sun as it moves across the sky, increasing energy production.
_1.jpg)
The Bethlehem plant, located close to river and rail transport connections, will be rigged out with BCI ’s new and re-shored equipment shipped to the US from facilities in Malaysia and Brazil.
“BCI Steel’s Pittsburgh factory enables the quick-ship response times we need to meet booming demand from our customers in the mid-Atlantic and heartland regions,” said Dan Shugar, chief executive and founder of Nextracker.
“This investment will increase the resilience of the US solar supply chain and bring manufacturing jobs, equipment and capacity back to America.”
Business information provider S&P Global has previously said that steel procurement and manufacturing locations would be a key concern for tracker suppliers amid growing local content requirements and volatile shipping freight costs.
Earlier this year, Nextracker launched a green steel tracker manufacturing line in Texas with JM Steel, and another dedicated steel production line in Arizona with Atkore.
The California-based company, which has already procured this year 100,000 tonnes of US-made steel, said it was targeting 10 GW of domestic tracker capacity, enough to power 7.5 million homes.
Energy transition and the buildout of renewables in the US will be a hot topic at Breakbulk Americas 2022, taking place on 27-29 September at the George R. Brown Convention Centre in Houston.
Click on the link below by 15 July to get your early bird registration rate.
