Swiss solar technology company Meyer Burger has announced it will establish a solar panel manufacturing facility in Goodyear, Arizona, with production scheduled to begin by the end of 2022. The facility will first have a capacity of 400 MW with the potential to scale to 1.5 GW.
Meyer Burger also has a manufacturing facility in Germany that just recently ramped production. The company said Arizona was chosen for its U.S. manufacturing hub due to its proximity to customers.
Inside Meyer Burger’s new facility in Germany
“Meyer Burger is thrilled to be establishing roots in Arizona and expanding our footprint to the United States,” said CEO Gunter Erfurt. “My sincere thanks to our partners in Arizona for their support throughout this process. Solar energy will be critical to achieving U.S. and global clean energy goals, and our proprietary heterojunction cell technology and patented SmartWire module technology enable us to produce products of the highest quality and performance in order to offer our customers economically competitive solar components.”
The Arizona facility will manufacture heterojunction technology (HJT) modules for the residential, commercial and utility-scale markets. The site is expected to create 250 manufacturing jobs, and potentially 500 jobs once at its 1.5-GW scale.
Meyer Burger has entered into a lease as the first tenant of a recently constructed new building in Goodyear. The company has already begun hiring key personnel to support installation of equipment and initial startup of the facility. The company intends to continue hiring through 2022 in order to train personnel and ramp production quickly.
“I am very pleased to welcome Meyer Burger to our community,” said Mayor of Goodyear Joe Pizzillo. “The decision to make a large investment in our community shows Goodyear is an excellent location for advanced manufacturing businesses. Our highly skilled workforce, modern infrastructure, and low cost of doing business has created an environment where companies can thrive. This project will create hundreds of new jobs, and I thank Meyer Burger for its investment in our city.”
Goodyear, Arizona, is no stranger to solar panel manufacturing. The city was once home to Suntech’s U.S. manufacturing headquarters. The Chinese solar panel giant opened a 50-MW facility in October 2010 before shutting the site down in 2013. The company cited high import tariffs on Chinese solar cells and aluminum frames as well as the global module oversupply at the time as the reasoning behind the facility shutdown.
” The company cited high import tariffs on Chinese solar cells and aluminum frames as well as the global module oversupply at the time as the reasoning behind the facility shutdown.”
Interesting ‘tell’, the Chinese company couldn’t compete against the “motherland” from tariffs supposed to protect manufacturers in the U.S.. I’m thinking the pundit here is an old Southern term, “That dog won’t hunt.”
Here’s hoping Meyer Burger does much better here than Suntech.