Japanese industrial electric and automation technology company Toshiba Mitsubishi-Electric Industrial Systems Corporation (TMEIC) has begun operations at its inverter manufacturing plant in Texas, US.
Its American subsidiary began producing utility-scale inverters in November 2024 at the 144,000 square-foot Westport facility, a few months after the company unveiled its plans to build the plant. At the time, the company also announced it would relocate its US headquarters from Roanoke, Virginia, to Houston, Texas, in March 2025.
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Since the beginning of operations and reaching its full operational capacity, the company said it had produced over 300 utility-scale solar PV inverters as of 5 February.
When the manufacturing plans were unveiled in August 2024, the company aimed to reach an initial annual nameplate capacity of 9GW for solar PV inverters. Planned upgrades to further expand the nameplate capacity are ongoing, according to the company.
Manmeet Bhatia, president and CEO of TMEIC Corporation Americas, said: “The opening of this factory is a cornerstone of TMEIC’s strategy to expand its US manufacturing presence, allowing us to meet the increasing demand for renewable energy solutions. With our expanded production capacity, we are well-positioned to meet market demand and contribute significantly to the growth of the US solar industry.”
Despite ongoing uncertainty on certain aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act, operational solar manufacturing capacity has continued to grow since Donald Trump took office last month. US trade association, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), recently highlighted that the US had passed 50GW of annual nameplate capacity for solar modules.
Furthermore, during the third quarter of 2024, the country started producing solar cells again, after five years without any domestic solar cell production. Although the nameplate capacity for solar cells is still far away from the 50GW for modules, taking into account capacity under construction (11.8GW – SEIA numbers) and planned (42.6GW), it would reduce the gap between both in the coming years.
