Australian solar pioneer company 5B has been awarded a $50 million-plus US contract to build a US Customs-compliant manufacturing plant in partnership with India’s Waaree Group.
With this to rapid rollout of production capacity in an India plant the US is clearly moving away from the use of solar hardware made in China.
5B’s Maverick technology prefabricates 50-kilowatt solar arrays that can be unfolded off the back of a truck and ground mounted to speed-up solar installation process.
The latest version of 5B’s technology, Maverick 3.0, allows even faster deployment that means an increased capacity to handle larger projects.
5B’s Chief executive David Griffin told the AFR that the company was negotiating much larger projects.
“We still serve those more modest size projects in the tens of megawatts, but we’re also seeing and actively negotiating on hundreds of megawatt projects. Everybody who exports is conscious of the amount of carbon embedded in their product, and they’re really trying to find ways to decarbonise, so there might be noise. But the key things that drive this deployment – the cost and the ultimate demand – are very, very strong. So I don’t see that changing.”
At the moment, most green energy companies are benefiting from India’s aim to boost non-fossil fuel energy capacity amid increasing power demand.
In fact, after returning from Ayodhya following the consecration ceremony at the Ram Mandir, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that his first decision is to launch a scheme to install solar rooftops in one crore houses.
Waaree is considered India’s top solar panel maker and is helping to achieve the country’s aim for more renewable energy amid surging demand for power.
5B’s deal with Waaree Renewable Technologies is to build a manufacturing plant to make Maverick solar arrays in Gujarat.
Presently, 5B has been assembling panels shipped from China and with the US government’s crack down on the use of Chinese panels, the Indian plant is set to boom.
As per AFR report, the Indian manufacturing plant will produce its first modules in April.
With this the construction of the 70MW solar farm in the US will begin in the second half of the year.
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