First Solar has acquired Idealab operating company RayTracker, a photovoltaic panel tracking technology and balance-of-systems firm based in Pasadena, CA. RayTracker's team will join First Solar's engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) group, and the acquired company’s customers will be transitioned to its new parent.
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The new additions will bring expertise in solar technology innovation, reliability engineering, advanced PV system modeling, software engineering, product development, and high-volume manufacturing to the company, according to First Solar.
The RayTracker suite of technology includes GC-Series single-axis trackers, PV-Platform Software Toolset for system design and operation, wireless infrastructure, and other PV balance-of-system innovations.
Originally a product group of fellow Idealab company and concentrator PV developer Energy Innovations, RayTracker spun out as a separate entity in March 2009. The BOS firm experienced solid growth in 2010, saying it had tripled quarter-over-quarter revenue in successive quarters in the first half of the year.
First Solar spokesman Alan Bernheimer told PV-Tech via email that the deal is indeed closed and that no terms have been disclosed. The nine employees of RayTracker will remain in Pasadena.
“Tracker technology is one of a number of initiatives under development in our systems group as part of our broader effort to enable lower LCOE [levelized cost of energy] pricing capability and further differentiate our solution in the market,” he explained. “Customers are increasingly interested in trackers for their potential to optimize energy yield and reduce the LCOE.
He also said that First Solar is “field testing the [tracker] technology,” although there are “no results to report.”
“We are not announcing any new products at this time,” he added. “First Solar is still evaluating the effectiveness of tracking and other advanced systems technologies and will announce product offerings through a customer release process when appropriate to do so.”
RayTracker stated in July that it would be increasing its outsourced manufacturing capacity to 25MW per month and that it had more than 1.5GW in its “pipeline of quoted projects.”
REC Solar, Martifer Solar, and groSolar have been cited as RayTracker customers that had used the newly acquired company’s equipment in their 2010 projects.
Although he could not provide any further information on the current manufacturing status of RayTracker's product line or First Solar’s strategy for tracker production, Bernheimer did say that the company “will continue to honor the contractual commitments of RayTracker. Other order requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.”
