NYC developer Ron Faia’s innovative solution to a dilapidated building lead to the construction of the city’s first building powered entirely by renewable energy. The triangle shaped building is fittingly named The Delta. The Delta is not just an eco-friendly building; it’s a bed-and-breakfast with retail and restaurant space too. The building lacks a true south, a daunting obstacle for any all renewable energy building, but this didn’t stop Faia. The solution for this unusual structure was to find a racking partner that could work within these constraints. Schletter was called upon to outfit the building with a comprehensive vertical racking solution; its first façade system installation in the United States.

Schletter Racking an Integral Part of NYC’s First All-Renewable-Energy-Powered Building

Want to read more about The Delta? Just click here to read the entire article on Solar Power World.

Expansion plans announced by Schletter Inc. include new U.S. headquarters and additional manufacturing capabilities with a new plant in Shelby, North Carolina.

August 23, 2012 — Tucson, AZ — Schletter Inc., a proven leader in solar mounting systems, selects North Carolina as the location for the company’s new North American headquarters and eastern manufacturing location. Announced earlier this month by the office of Governor Bev Perdue, Schletter has purchased a 100,000 square foot facility in Cleveland County, outside Shelby, North Carolina which will employee approximately 300 individuals within the next 5-years.

This strategic move for the company positions Schletter in a rapid growth area for the solar industry. With states such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and North Carolina offering renewable energy incentives, the demand for all types of solar systems will continue to remain strong throughout the region. Solar mounting systems are just one component of a PV installation, but the most critical from a structural perspective. Schletter will manufacture key products at the new Shelby location, including the market leading FS System for utility-scale ground mount installations. The FS System was used in the country’s current largest solar installation in Arizona, totaling 150 MW.

Schletter’s New U.S. Headquarters

“Large solar installations require multiple truckloads of material, which is costly with current petroleum costs,” stated Mr. Martin Hausner, president of Schletter Inc. Mr. Hausner went on to say that, “With the addition of a second U.S. manufacturing location, these costs will be dramatically reduced for our eastern customer base and lead times for deliveries will improve. In the end, reducing costs for our customers is the only way we can maintain competitiveness in this market. As a leader in solar mounting products, it is our responsibility to continually improve our processes, our products and our quality to provide attractive material pricing and to reduce the end cost of installation for our customers.”

Schletter has plans to create an on-site product demonstration area with a training facility for various NABCEP continuing education classes offered by the company. Each U.S. manufacturing plant will be equipped to train customers with the company’s popular products used in utility-scale, commercial, and residential solar mounting systems.

By the end of 2012, Schletter plans to employee a minimum of 80 employees at the Shelby facility and begin producing products for area customers. Within the next five years, a total of 300 employees are expected to be employed at this location. Once the Shelby plant is operational, the company’s North American manufacturing locations will include Tucson, Arizona; Shelby, North Carolina; and Windsor, Ontario with numerous sales locations throughout the United States.

The Delta: self-powered building in Brooklyn, NY

Green developer, Voltaic Solaire, has just announced the opening of New York City’s first entirely self-powered building. Members of the media will first be allowed to tour the Brooklyn building on June 13^th. Following that initial opening, the building will function as a bed and breakfast in order to maintain The Delta’s (as the building is called) availability for educational purposes.

Schletter played a part in achieving this large step toward a more sustainable future. We did what we do best by engineering and manufacturing the custom solar mounting system for this project. Other key contributors include green companies such as: Tianwei (solar skin), SunMaxx (solar thermal panels), Kingston Block (aggregate cement and bricks), Solar BOS (source circuit combiners), solar innovations (tilt turn windows) and Eemax (tankless water heaters).

Click here for the original press release.

We expect everyone’s heard by now about the new 31% tariffs levied against Chinese solar panels – and it’s certainly created a big reaction (original article available here). But while it sounds impressive, we don’t think it will have very much impact on panel prices for the end buyer.

Why not? A couple reasons…

* The DoE is invested in reducing installed PV costs, and we think they will exert a significant amount of influence behind the scenes to have the final tariff amount reduced.

* All the major Chinese manufacturers are already gearing up to move production outside China. Remember that the definition of “made in China” is pretty specific – cells can be made on the mainland and then sent to another plant in Taiwan or Singapore or elsewhere for final assembly, and thus sidestep the tariff. Some companies are looking to move production to the US as well.

* Even if module prices are bumped up by $0.15/W – which is higher than what will likely happen – that still puts them equal to price levels from just a couple months ago. The way prices have been falling lately, a small bump back up won’t seriously hurt the industry.

In fact, if prices bump up a bit and people realize that the downward trend is over, it might well spur movement on some significant projects. Folks who have been waiting to see how low prices will go will get their answer, and move forward with installations.