Utility-scale solar a 'viable reality,' Amonix says

Now on its seventh generation of concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) solar technology, Amonix has been around longer — since 1989 — than many solar-energy companies. And it doesn’t produce CPV modules only for utility-scale solar projects, but uses them at its own manufacturing plant as well.

Paid for in part with nearly $6 million in federal Recovery Act, Amonix’ new manufacturing facility in North Las Vegas gets some of its power from Amonix’ own 77-by-49-foot 7700 CPV system, which the company claims is the “world’s largest pedestal mounted solar system.

The 300-plus clean-energy jobs created by the plant’s opening are just the kind of high-tech manufacturing employment the US needs to compete in the global economy, said US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who visited the facility this week. The construction project was also just one of around 80 energy- and efficiency-related initiatives the Department of Energy has invested in — to the tune of more than $440 million — in Nevada over the past two-and-a-half years.

Amonix CEO Brian Robertson said Chu’s visit “emphasizes the reality that utility-scale solar energy is an economically viable reality.”

The company has so far deployed its CPV modules to a dozen solar power plants in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado and Spain.