Nextracker Inc., a provider of utility-scale solar trackers, and MSS Steel Tubes USA – a joint venture of Portuguese industrial company Metalogalva and Brazilian steelmaker Soufer – have commissioned a new factory to manufacture low-carbon steel components for Nextracker’s solar tracking systems. Based in Memphis, Tenn., the facility will manufacture Nextracker steel torque tubes, creating 129 jobs and generating millions of dollars in local economic investment.
“We chose Memphis for our first U.S. plant to support Nextracker’s utility-scale solar demand across the Southeast,” says António Pedro Antunes, CEO of Metalogalva Group. “Memphis has the transportation, infrastructure and capable workforce necessary to support a solar manufacturing program like this.”
Nextracker’s dedicated tube mill will feed projects in Kentucky, South Carolina, Virginia, Mississippi and Georgia. Tennessee-based Silicon Ranch is developing many of those projects, having signed a supply agreement for 1.5 GW with Nextracker last year and a 3 GW supply agreement recently.
“Nextracker’s new Tennessee tube mill … enables us to support additional investments in American manufacturing while lowering carbon production processes of our supply chain and reducing volatility and logistics risks – all from our home state,” says Reagan Farr, Silicon Ranch co-founder and CEO.
Adds Dan Shugar, founder and CEO of Nextracker, “This is what energy security looks like: New U.S. manufacturing jobs using American-made steel to produce affordable clean energy. Customers want domestic, low-carbon technologies like solar power.”
Nextracker’s collaboration with MSS Steel Tubes USA underscores the Tennessee Valley’s growth as a regional manufacturing hub for the Southeast. As more companies seek to locate their manufacturing capacity in the U.S., Nextracker has already delivered gigawatts of U.S.-made products to solar developers.