As governments from over 190 countries came together in Paris in December 2015 to reach an agreement on curbing climate change, businesses continued to play a role of their own in the transition toward a low-carbon economy. One of the moving targets for businesses in this field is lowering the cost of and improving the technology behind clean-energy sources such as solar power.
Solar power has crossed 20 gigawatts (GW) of production capacity and employs close to 200,000 people in the United States alone. As the size of the market grows, new solutions that improve the efficiency and implementation of solar power have the potential to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in value.
One example of a business focused on improving the efficiency of solar panels is NEXTracker with its NX Horizon tracker, formerly known as the Self-Powered Tracker. Solar panels are most efficient when they are directly facing the sun—the tracker rotates them during the day to that end and improves output by up to 40 percent. In addition to the breakthrough technology behind NEXTracker’s products, the tracker itself is powered by solar energy and, therefore, does not need an external source of electricity to operate.
NEXTracker’s products are improving the efficiency of solar panels around the world, with more than 2 GW of capacity expected to be covered in 2015. The increased efficiency of the solar panels means higher production of renewable energy, translating into the avoidance of millions of metric tons in carbon emissions.
NEXTracker was spun off from Solaria in 2013 after a year of incubation. In September 2015, NEXTracker was acquired by Flextronics for $330 million, which includes an $85 million payout contingent upon future performance.
Sources:
Solar Industry Data | SEIA
In U.S., There Are Twice as Many Solar Workers as Coal Miners—Fortune Magazine
NEXTracker | Breakthrough Horizontal Tracking Technology
Flextronics buys NEXTracker for $330 Million | Greentech Media
