US solar tracker manufacturer Nextracker has unveiled a new manufacturing line in collaboration with industrial manufacturing services company Unimacts.
The new manufacturing facility is located in Sloan, Nevada and produces steel torque tubes that are used to hold and rotate solar panels in solar PV plants. It is also the second Nextracker-dedicated manufacturing line, in addition to a tracker component manufacturing line in Las Vegas, which opened last year.
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Both manufacturing lines have a combined capacity of more than 2GW. After adding this new manufacturing line to its portfolio, Nextracker’s annual domestic solar tracker capacity will be over 30GW.
Last September, PV Tech attended the opening of the manufacturing plant in Las Vegas, Nevada. This new facility follows a suite of domestic production lines across the US, from Texas to Arizona, passing by Tennessee, among other locations. The factory in Las Vegas is dedicated to producing critical steel components for Nextracker.
Dan Shugar, founder and CEO of Nextracker, said the company has opened or expanded over 20 US manufacturing plants since 2021, including new or expanded dedicated production lines.
Prior to this announcement, Nextracker posted its financial results for the company’s fourth quarter and the full year of its last financial year in May. In the financial year ended on 31 March 2024, the value of Nextracker’s backlog increased from US$2.56 billion to more than US$4 billion, representing an increase of more than 56%. The company said this was due to robust demand and new tracker fleets operating across the US and international markets.
The company’s backlog has increased significantly in recent years. In FY 2022, it was only US$1.3 billion.
Aside from this backlog, the company’s revenue in Q4 – which ran from 01 January to 31 March 2024 – increased by 42% year-on-year to US$737 million. Of the total revenue, the US market accounted for 67% (US$494 million), with the rest of the world making up the remaining 33% (US$242 million).
