Dive Brief:
- Solar energy equipment maker Enphase Energy began shipping microinverters from its third U.S. contract manufacturing site last week, this time in Arlington, Texas.
- The panels are produced by contract manufacturer Salcomp at its existing Arlington facility, adding to Enphase's contract production sites in South Carolina and Wisconsin.
- Enphase and Salcomp plan to expand their partnership next year, adding the production of battery storage products and commercial-scale microinverters.
Dive Insight:
Enphase has been spreading out its manufacturing needs among multiple contractors in the past several months.
In July, the company began shipping Foxconn-made microinverters from a facility in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, as well as from a site operated by manufacturer Flex in Columbia, South Carolina.
The new locations are part of Enphase's $60 million investment in expanding its U.S. manufacturing capacity across its six total production line sites. The company now has capacity to produce 18 million microinverters a year, with plans to ship 600,000 units from the three new sites in Q3. Production is spread across six lines at the three sites.
"The ability to service our local customers better, along with helping to support installers to deliver our industry-leading solutions, are some of our top priorities," Ron Swenson, VP of operations at Enphase, said in a statement.
Enphase's manufacturing capacity push is also spreading across the globe. In March, the company began shipping microinverters produced at a Flex facility in Romania.
And in July, Enphase announced a new distribution partnership with Poland-based renewable energy company BayWa r.e., as well as began offering battery solutions in Spain and Portugal.
