DSD Renewables, a commercial solar developer, operator and asset owner, has signed a one-year agreement with PanelClaw, a manufacturer of solar panel mounting systems, to supply panel racking for a 150 MW portfolio DSD will begin deploying this year.
DSD says its partnership with PanelClaw ensures a secure supply of domestically sourced racking systems to efficiently deploy solar projects over the next year and maintain market competitiveness as demand rises for projects, while also supporting domestic manufacturing and labor.
“Volatility will continue in the supply chain short-term,” says Robb Jetty, COO at DSD. “Fortunately, DSD’s partnership with PanelClaw will mitigate delays, standardize our engineering processes, provide predictability on some hard costs and ensure we have access to the materials necessary to deploy our portfolio of projects.”
With a fixed supplier of racking systems, DSD says it can reduce design times and speed up permitting processes for projects, while eliminating the need to find new suppliers for each deployment. The portfolio that the agreement will support, which includes solar installations with The Home Depot, allowed PanelClaw to work with its domestic suppliers to lock in competitive pricing and strategically look beyond a single project at a time.
Work on the projects will begin early this year. DSD is exploring a second long-term supplier agreement with PanelClaw next year to support its 2024 build plan.