Jan 5 2009
American Solar Electric, Inc. and Solon Corporation have announced a photovoltaic (PV) module supply agreement. The agreement initially calls for Solon to supply over 1.5 megawatts (MW) of its Tucson-manufactured solar panels to American Solar Electric, marking Solon’s entrance into the U.S. residential market segment. The combination of design and installation services from Arizona-based American Solar Electric and Arizona-manufactured products from Solon offers the most complete Arizona solution for residential PV systems to date.
“The addition of Solon’s products to our line of grid-connected PV systems marks the start of a new chapter in Arizona’s solar history. For the first time, Arizonans will have the opportunity to have locally manufactured solar panels installed on their homes. We are very excited to be installing the first residential systems with 'Made in Arizona' solar panels,” said Sean Seitz, President of American Solar Electric.
American Solar Electric will begin installing Solon’s high-quality, German-engineered solar panels later this month. The initial focus is on supplying American Solar Electric’s burgeoning residential business segment with deployment to the company’s non-residential customers later in the year. The initial agreement will furnish enough solar electric panels for the installation of 375 average-sized residential systems; in total this equates to offsetting the carbon sequestered by nearly 50,000 trees.
“American Solar Electric has an outstanding reputation for quality design and installation throughout Arizona. We are pleased to name American Solar Electric as our preferred installer for Arizona,” said Solon Corporation’s CEO Olaf Koester.
“This partnership is an exciting outgrowth of Arizona’s Renewable Energy Standard (RES),” said Corporation Commissioner Kris Mayes. “When we were crafting the RES, we deliberately created an aggressive distributed generation component, not only to help homeowners and businesses to put solar panels on their rooftops, but also in the hopes that someday we would see those solar panels manufactured right here in Arizona.”
Solon’s Tucson manufacturing facility opened last October, and is currently employing around 130 people. In its first phase, the production site will have an annual capacity of 100 MW.