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Betting big on ‘Made in America’ solar

Betting big on ‘Made in America’ solar

In Episode 7 of the Factor This! podcast, Nextracker founder and CEO Dan Shugar explains his company's decision to invest heavily in U.S. manufacturing amid supply chain constraints and trade disputes facing the solar industry. Plus, he gives a sneak peek at Nextracker’s next manufacturing announcement.

A global energy crisis, trade disputes, and shipping constraints have magnified the importance of secure supply chains. Maybe no industry has been more exposed to those headwinds over the past two years than solar. 

Even before the Auxin Solar tariff petition threatened the U.S. market’s survival, Nextracker founder and CEO Dan Shugar made a bet: ‘Made in America’ would soon matter more than ever. 

Over the past four months, Nextracker, a leading manufacturer of trackers for utility-scale solar projects, has opened three steel production facilities in the U.S. — Corpus Christi, Phoenix, and Pittsburgh — to scale 10 GW of domestic capacity. 

A fourth facility, to be located near Chicago, is expected to be announced this fall.

The decision to ramp up domestic manufacturing was an easy one, Shugar said, and was made quickly, a little over a year ago.

"We decided right then that we were going to order a massive amount of manufacturing equipment to be able to support a significant expansion in key markets, including the United States," Shugar said on an episode of the Factor This! podcast.

"We ordered all the equipment. We didn't know where it was all going to go."

Nextracker founder and CEO Dan Shugar alongside Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm at the unveiling of Nextracker's new steel production line in Pittsburgh. (Courtesy: Nextracker)

The coronarivus pandemic had sent steel prices soaring and tripled delivery estimates in some cases.

Utility-scale solar developers needed the improved reliability and certainty that domestic manufacturing can provide.

In addition to purchasing new equipment, Nextracker reshored some from China. And, while the company maintains a global footprint with operations in nine countries, strategic regional investments were made throughout the U.S. to reduce risks and meet customers where they are.

"Leadership is not going with the herd," Shugar said. He said a number of companies were "hunkering down" and waiting until things stabilized.

"We decided that we are going to move forward. We are going to invest in the States. We're going to source U.S. steel. We're going to get lower-carbon steel. And we're going to hit high on-time delivery metrics. Full stop," he said.

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New analysis of global solar supply chains from the International Energy Agency determined that world leaders must intervene to diversify the entire manufacturing lifecycle — from raw material processing to panel assembly.

China controls 80% of key manufacturing stages for solar modules, according to the report, while the country's share of polysilicon and wafer supply could reach 95% in the coming years.

On July 12, more than 400 clean energy companies signed a letter urging leaders in Congress to act on legislation that would provide billions of dollars to address the disparities.

Nextracker founder and CEO Dan Shugar

The companies, through the Solar Energy Industries Association, are advocating for congressional action on the Solar Energy Manufacturing for America (SEMA) Act, which would provide incentives for domestic manufacturing throughout the solar supply chain.

SEMA would create tax incentives of 11 cents/watt for integrated modules, 4 c/w for cells, $12/sq. m. of wafer, and $3/kg of polysilicon. Production of non-integrated solar modules would receive 7 c/w. Production of solar trackers and inverters would also receive credits.

Shugar said incentives could help Nextracker "do a lot more" domestically by expanding existing facilities, like the ones unveiled in Texas, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. It's much easier, he added, to increase capacity at a factory than to build a new one.

Shugar called on those throughout the solar value chain to make investments now rather than later. Waiting for an advantageous policy may not be enough.

"At this point in my career, it's about delivering exemplary products and services reliably for customers, making decisions to enable that," he said, and not "making excuses about what might be happening in a faraway place."

Show notes

Factor This! Episode 7 Transcript

Host: John Engel 0:00

A global energy crisis, trade disputes, and shipping constraints have magnified the importance of secure supply chains.

Maybe no industry has been more exposed to those headwinds over the past two years than solar. 

And even before the Auxin Solar tariff petition threatened the U.S. market’s survival, Nextracker founder and CEO Dan Shugar made a bet: ‘Made in America’ would soon matter more than ever. 

Over the past four months, Nextracker has opened three steel production facilities in the U.S.  — Corpus Christi, Phoenix, and Pittsburgh — to scale 10 GW of domestic capacity.

And first on Factor This, a fourth facility located near Chicago, will be announced this coming fall. More on that in a bit.

What led to this decision to so rapidly ramp up domestic manufacturing, while other companies looked to weather the storm?

I'm John Engel from Renewable Energy World. On this episode of Factor This!... A man synonymous with solar. Nextracker founder and CEO Dan Shugar.

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Host: John Engel 1:29

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Host: John Engel 1:58

So I'm not going to go through your full bio, but anyone listening to this knows the name Dan Shugar, if they've spent any time in solar, you know the name Dan Shugar. So it's great for me to be able to meet you, Dan, and have you, I guess, cement the credibility of our new solar podcast Factor This. So thanks for being here.

Dan Shugar, Nextracker CEO  02:15

Oh, my pleasure, John, thanks so much.

Host: John Engel  02:17

Yeah, it's timely to be able to get a chance to talk to you because we just wrapped up our deep dive series into the Auxin Solar tariff petition. And we spent a considerable amount of time talking about domestic supply chains, and what it'll take to build up the supply chain here in the US for solar. Before we get into some of the recent announcements from Nextracker, related directly to that, I would love for you to describe what this last year has been like for you, as you've watched the industry have to navigate global pandemic, the trade case supply chain constraints, everything else going on. It's more than just modules, it'syour area as well. So what's that been like for you?

Dan Shugar, Nextracker CEO  02:59

Yeah, well, I think for anybody in business and not just in the solar energy business, it's been, you know, very challenging. We've had the pandemic; we've had, you know, a really horrible war start with Putin's aggression in Ukraine; we've had a number of natural disasters around the world. It's been, it's been tough. And with the pandemic, getting folks together, and in an office environment to meet and then meeting with customers and suppliers has, and traveling around the world, has been has been really limited, and things become very transactional. It's hard to connect over, you know, zoom, and other other platforms and so forth. So it's been hard relative for all of us. And I think we all need, you know, extra empathy, to deal with every one where everyone we're interfacing with. But in crisis, there can also be opportunity. So we at Nextracker, we really used this, in particular the meltdown in the global logistics, industry in a lot of the volatility we've seen in in commodities, both logistics costs, as well as steel cost has pulled back and really think about what we're doing holistically and reimagine how we're going to serve the global industry. So we were able to essentially continue building out manufacturing capacity in markets that we're serving. What we've really been focused on this last year is the United States. And so we've actually stood up or massively expanded a total of four facilities that today are producing tracker parts, you know, in high volume force in the US.

Host: John Engel  04:52

Well, and that's that's the nature of this conversation, too. It's been remarkable to see Nextracker's announcements over these last three months. You mentioned four facilities. But since April, I believe we have the Corpus Christi facility, we have Phoenix, and most recently Pittsburgh. I saw the videos and ribbon cutting there as you were there with Secretary Granholm and it looked like a very exciting moment. And I know that all these decisions take a long time, or can take a long time to come together. So I would really love to know when that thought process started for you to not only emphasize the the US market, but when you really put you know, boots on the ground for this and said, we're going to commit the capital and go through this process.

Dan Shugar, Nextracker CEO  05:37

Well, I really appreciate the question, John. I like to reflect on his decision processes. What did we know when and what decision did we make in order to learn, you know, as we go and inform our future decision processes. At any time in a business, you never have perfect information. And in the case of you know, what happened with the supply chain, there was a lot of issues...  sitting here a year ago, the consultants in the logistics industry that were the best people we could find and many have been right, were predicting, oh, yeah, things are going to normalize. If you went back through quarters before that, there's often like issues around Chinese New Year, because things slow down, and they speed up whether or not you're getting anything from China, they're a big exporter. I've been in the solar industry since 1988, and for a lot of that time, we were in a manufacturing posture, but we were also in a project fulfillment mode. And so we've been in the shoes of a number of the customers. What customers need is a reliable delivery of products in the field. And so any manufacturer that was relying on any products coming from anywhere, in a container through any port, that needed to get on any truck was massively impacted. Last year, we saw global delivery times double, triple, in some cases more. We basically made a decision over well, first, let me just say Nextracker has a massive amount of global manufacturing capacity. We're manufacturing in any given time and nine countries plus or minus four continents plus or minus serving local demand in those facilities, but then mitigating risk from things like natural disaster, tariffs, commodity, wars, things like that. And going back a year and a half ago, we thought we had done a very good job of mitigating that by having a very big footprint out there. And we were manufacturing the states just not on a very high volume. So what happened was when all these issues started manifesting in the meltdown of the global supply chain area, and you had, you know, very smart people like Warren Buffett say, "Hey, we didn't see this coming. None of my portfolio companies saw this coming," we had a moment. I have this thing called threshold. And when we hit threshold, we make decisions and move quickly. So we we had, again, working with many great partners around the world built out a huge amount of capacity to serve the global solar market. But we decided right then it was about five quarters ago that we were just going to order a massive amount of manufacturing equipment to be able to support a significant expansion in key markets, including the United States with a lot of focus on the US, but also also some places overseas. So we ordered all the equipment, we didn't know where it was all gonna go. And so folks will say, hey, where are we gonna put it? We'll figure it out! We've got great partners, we'll figure it out.

Host: John Engel  09:21

You were making those decisions as everyone else was tightening their wallets. I'd love to get into the the headspace that you were in when you know the pandemic was dragging the markets, but also the tariff case and, and all of these things. And here you are bringing equipment back from China and buying new equipment and spending and investing. While everything else would tell you to hit pause, weather the storm, why go the route that you did instead of one with caution?

Dan Shugar, Nextracker CEO  09:51

Well, I really appreciate that. Well, let me just start with this. The thing I've consistently gotten wrong in my career consistently is to underestimated growth in the solar market. So, solar is unstoppable for many reasons. One is the economics are just phenomenal. Solar's half to a third to a fifth the cost of generating compared to gas, coal and nuclear, for example. Okay, we really have the wind on our back in the last few years, and we expect that to continue. Folks want their energy to come from the sun. It's lower risk to generate with solar than these other technologies that are very harmful to the environment, and then they have policies of risk and fuel risk and things like that. So, underpinning our thinking process was this very strong demand. And we're very close to customers, and we see a cut, globally, and in the US, many very smart customers that have advanced projects with millions of dollars of investment, to secure interconnection, land rights, and so forth. So we we see this very vibrant underpinning of growth. Leadership is not going with the herd. So going back to your question. There were a number of companies that were hunkering down and just waiting until things stabilized in the logistics area or policy got advanced. We were thinking the Build Back Better incentives would happen in the US for solar and so forth. And folks were like, well, why now? Why should we reorder this equipment today? Let's wait till that get that comes. At this point in my career, John, it's about delivering exemplary products and services reliably for customers, making decisions to enable that, and not making excuses about what might be happening in a faraway place, or report or not getting a container on a chassis. We hit threshold with that. And we decided we are going to move forward. And we're going to invest in the States, and we're going to source US steel, we're going to get lower carbon steel, and we're going to hit high on time delivery metrics for customers. Full stop. So there comes a point, you just need to move forward. Okay? And so that's what Nextacker did. And I really want to thank some of our partners that helped us get to this place. We partnered in Texas with JM Steel, a fantastic company that has a long legacy and manufacturing steel products in the United States and abroad. We moved forward with Atkore, which is a legacy partner of Nextracker's going way back. We ordered equipment and and provided that to their Phoenix facility where we had a dedication last month, as well as their Chicago facility. We haven't had a dedication there. But that's also expanding in parallel to be able to produce our solar tracker products.

Host: John Engel  13:19

Is that embargoed? Is that is that Chicago news embargoed? Or did you just drop a little scoop on the podcast?

Dan Shugar, Nextracker CEO  13:26

Well, John, I really value your podcast, and we want to give you salient tidbits of information. So yeah, so thanks for that. Yeah. And then yesterday, we had a very exciting event in Pittsburgh. We were very pleased to receive the support of BCI, which has been a legacy supply chain partner of Nextracker even before we founded the company. We've done many projects with them. The Pittsburgh facility, we actually used the equipment that had been operated for for a number of years by BCI in Malaysia, and we relocated that equipment, we refurbished the equipment. We then restarted a legacy plant in Pittsburgh. So, Pittsburgh, I don't know if everyone really appreciates this. As recently as the early 1980s, over two thirds of the global steel was manufactured in this region, and it came to market over the Ohio River to the Mississippi and then down the Mississippi, and you can with barges move very heavy things very effectively. For example, a coil of steel is very heavy. An 18 wheeler truck a flap that can only handle one coil, but you can put 100 coils on a barge and move that with a fraction of the amount of energy that you can to move it on a truck. You can even put barges together. They're moving doesn't barges with a single tugboat for example. So that area was a global producer of steel and has a legacy going back to World War Two. The actual area that our plant is in actually made land and craft that were used to carry tanks that were used in World War Two and support the Normandy and other operations. So you have this incredible infrastructure of ports and locks and dams and buildings and cranes, but you also have this incredible infrastructure of human talent. And so they're in that area. Folks know how to do these things. And so we were able to very quickly stand up a plant, we refurbished it. This particular building that we're in is it's it's three football fields in length. I mean, this is a long building. It has a 40 ton crane, there's another couple of cranes, there's a crane in the adjoining area, in the in the yard, where you can be receiving huge volumes of material and shipping directly at loading directly on barges or there's a rail, a rail line that goes right into the building, you can also have shipped by rail or intermodal on truck. So all that all that capability is there, we were able to take this building, which had previously been operated by Bethlehem Steel which closed decades ago, and just used as a low value warehouse in recent decades. We were able to refurbish this facility, we did a very rapid upgrade, we poured a new concrete floor, we redid the lighting, we brought power into the building, we took the equipment from Malaysia, both steel processing equipment, in terms of tube lines, stamping facilities, other things, refurbish that, get it on the floor and actually start producing tubes last week. And so we did that in record time, due to the great help of our team and the BCI team. And so our model was basically now it's clear that what we wanted to do is essentially have these regional facilities to be able to serve the local solar market with products that arrive on a flatbed instead of coming in a container for these long, heavy products, and be within a day's drive of a job site from these these kinds of facilities. So we executed this really flipped, as we spoke about at the inception of this conversation, a crisis to an opportunity to reimagine the supply chain. We've also really furthered and advanced our relationships with the major steel companies in America. There was a lot of consolidation that happened in the past. There's some very good companies in America and at the Texas event we featured Steel Dynamics as a key speaker. Our plant there in Texas adjoins... it's actually on the campus of the newest steel mill in America, which is the 3 million tonne mill Steel Dynamics put in in near Corpus Christi and literally that consolidation of manufacturing activity on site significantly reduces cost. It improves lead time it reduces carbon footprint, it enhances safety. And so all we were able to accomplish all that with them. Yesterday at our facility in Pittsburgh, we featured US Steel, which has an incredible legacy in the steel industry. They're headquartered in Pittsburgh. US Steel has pivoted toward electric arc furnace technology, which is the same type of mill that Steel Dynamics has down in Texas. And this is very exciting, in that the carbon content of steel produced with an electric arc furnace is significantly cleaner than the steel processes used in the traditional blast furnace basic oxygen process type of steelmaking. To throw some metrics around, the blast furnace process produces roughly two tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel produced whereas the electric arc furnace process produces 0.2 to 0.4 tonnes. So it's up to an order of magnitude cleaner to do US steel as if you look at the aggregate production about 80% of the US steel is electric arc furnace whereas overseas about 80% Is blast furnace. So migrating to US steel allows Nextracker to massively improve the environmental advanced steel, and also shorten lead time and create jobs here at home where the raw material is available locally and stabilized for customers, the commodity volatility that we experienced last year. So we wanted to be able to remove that risk from customers to be able to offer stable steel pricing, stable logistics pricing, reduce volatility with all the delays through the ports. Do all that while we're creating jobs. That's why customers and the US Department of Energy Secretary Granholm are very excited about about what we've created. And we were able to do that with these great partners in a record amount of time.

Host: John Engel  21:00

After one of the announcements, I think it was after Corpus Christi, one of your quotes said that customers are now demanding this reliability that you talked about -- the on time deliveries -- and they're demanding a domestically produced product, not just for modules, but components. And buyers want to source the Made in America product now. And that was going to be my next question... Is it just the delivery component? Or is it getting into the carbon intensity and the local workforce and all of these extras that were once extras but are becoming more and more important, in tandem with an administration that wants to see more local content in our solar farms and wants to see more local workforce development? Are your customers coming to you and saying, Dan, we need more of this? Can you get us there? Is that how this is going?

Dan Shugar, Nextracker CEO  21:57

Yeah, no, I appreciate the question. Customers are really responding well to the locally produced products. And the I think it's a bit early in terms of the actually quantifying the benefit of a lower carbon product. I mean, we're in solar, which is saving the big one is, you know, you're not burning coal, right. But to be able to produce the steel more cost effective or more environmentally, in a more environmentally friendly manner is a huge deal. And our customers want it but we want it index tracker, yeah, we really want to drive to as much as to massively reduce carbon in every aspect of our operation. It's not just in the steel. It's also in the logistics, you don't have to transport products to a port over an ocean, get materials out of port which has become increasingly difficult. And then trucked things around. If we can manufacture products close to home we can save at all these things. So you know our mission we exist at next tracker to make clean energy available to all moving to this cleaner steel thing helps in a couple of ways: one makes more product more reliable and available and helps our engineering procurement construction customers have a more reliable schedule. But what it also does is it moves the steel process from thermal energy, where you have these belching smokestacks with products like coal, that are powering those, to electric processes. So we're substituting thermal process without electricity that's coming in to melt this recycled steel. So for us, it's also part of this grander electrify everything movement, where we want to move consumer appliances, for example, water heating, from burning gas to electric water pumps. And if you live in the United States, and you don't have an electric water pump in your house, and you care about the environment, you care about your wallet, please do it because you're going to save $3-5,000 over the life of the appliance, but also reduce the gas used to your house by half on average. So that's an example for your home. The steel industry accounts for 7-8% of the global CO2. Steel is one of the largest contributors to carbon dioxide and it a heavy industrial process and it's one of these hard things to deal with. Well, here we have a process to use scrap and recycled steel for example, in an automobile there's about 500 pounds of steel that can go back into the process and and be used. So now you have to create more demand for solar to help power these mills. That's already happening. There's a mill in Colorado that's powered by solar. There's other mills that are looking at solar, and it will be happening. So, you know, solar is revolutionizing, you know, John, the the power generation sector. Well, now we have an opportunity to have solar help revolutionize the steel industry, both in terms of the power but also as we pull demand for more for cleaner steel products.

Host: John Engel  25:27

Well, and that's what I wanted to ask you about is how much more of this green steel phenomenon is going to be part of Nextracker's long-term focus? Because you mentioned that Colorado plant, I believe that the co-located solar was a Lightsourcebp project, I remember writing about it last year. And there's more and more buzz about that, not just because you can domestically sourced the steel now for buyers, but to be able to do it.... you mentioned it's marginal, where it's already the the lowest cost, lowest CO2 emission generation source out there. But every little bit that we can get back is meaningful and all of these companies have their own sustainability goals, just like Nextracker's, where those line items matter. And they stack and they scale. Right. So where do you see green steel going with you in the near and long-term?

Dan Shugar, Nextracker CEO  26:14

Sure. So first, I do want to acknowledge that plant that's in Colorado, you're correct. It's a Lightsourcebp project. We're very pleased to have the Chief Operating Officer of lightsourcebp Ann Davies speak at our event yesterday. That project is called Big Horn. I had the opportunity to visit that it was built by McCarthy builders. It is an absolutely beautiful plant. And I'd encourage anyone that can go there to to actually see that plant.

Host: John Engel  26:45

I'll include a link so that people can see that.

Dan Shugar, Nextracker CEO  26:48

Oh, that's great. Thank you. And it's, it's stunning. We had the opportunity to fly over the plant. And you can see the the solar like right next to the steel mill and helping power that and it's a beautifully constructed plant with Nextracker technology at the highest standard by McCarthy. Look, I can speak for Nextracker, and we want to drive our steel to the highest environmental standard, we can. And we're making huge progress on that now with our activities in the United States, we can, and there's there's a number of ways to contribute to this solution. One is with the electric arc furnace migrating toward that, that we've been discussing. There's a lot of work in steel to actually use hydrogen as an input to the steel process, both with the legacy process using the basic oxygen to process steel, as well as with the electric arc furnace technology. And so we see the steel industry moving on. And that's why we're pleased to be working with some of these leaders in the industry to help drive that. And so, you know, we're going to our goal is to drive that as, as quickly as possible for our operation, evangelize those benefits to customers, and then you know, work together to help move the steel that's used and solar toward that, but also help power those mills. It moves the needle, if you provide lower-cost electricity, these mills, then when mills and it could be mills overseas are making decisions about what can mill technology, what they want to use if if solar power is available that might help them use an electric arc furnace smell. And then now there's a demand for instead of cars rusting in a junkyard somewhere, it provides economic value for communities in the US and abroad to go grab that recycled steel is one of the most infinitely recyclable commodities in the world. And so I think it's really incumbent on all of us to help support that ecosystem.

Host: John Engel  29:00

How far do you want to go? I know that with these new facilities and new production lines, I think the domestic capacity is somewhere around 10 gigawatts or that was that was the goal you're marching toward this year. Do you want is it your dream to meet all of your US demand domestically, if possible, Is that realistic? Or, you know, given that you're a diverse company with a large footprint? Is that too much risk? How do you view that?

Dan Shugar, Nextracker CEO  29:28

Yeah, that's a good question, John. I think we basically, we've executed on a significant amount of capacity to support the US market. The actual production levels, depend on projects and needs and where the projects are. We've tried to locate our facilities in the centers of those demands. For example, the Pittsburgh facility is is in the Midwest. We've seen incredible growth in the Midwest. Which, you know, traditionally wasn't the Sunbelt. I mean, who would have thought the largest project solar project actually happening in the United States right now is the Mammoth Project, not because it's huge, even though it is 1300 megawatts, but because they found a woolly mammoth on the site. It's in Indiana actually. It's being built by SOLV Energy. Nextracker is privileged to be serving that first phase is substantially complete, from our standpoint, from our scope, and we look forward to serving additional phases, likely, from this particular factory. But yeah, we'll keep building capacity in the States as the market recovers. I mean, we have issues with solar panel availability as a primary issue that needs to recover. But I really want to contextualize Nextracker's a global company. We have number one share in the US, but we also have number one share in Australia, in Brazil, and in Africa, according to the report just published by Wood Mac, that the their annual solar tracker market share report was just published a few weeks ago, and that's available online to anybody if you want to order it. So you know, we take a global view. Years ago, we actually worked with partners to put multiple lines in our tracker  in Saudi Arabia. Believe it or not, we have today for many years, I think still today we have the largest operating solar power project in Saudi Arabia. It's a 400 megawatt project called Sakaka. And we built those, we built the product locally there. And so you know, we're continuing to look around the world and and that market continues growing and in Saudi Arabia, and that Gulf region. We've worked with partners to build capacity in India, Nextracker has had, for over three years, over two dozen projects operating in India. It is a very exciting, vibrant market. We look forward to building products there to help serve the Indian market and so forth. And so the story goes. So I think the key thing is, we can have a global manufacturing structure to support markets when need be, but where possible, these heavy volumetric products should be built within region, and to to basically serve region, you know, regional demand with regional product and create economy. And that's why solar policy is so important because it also helps create jobs where the the markets are being created.

Host: John Engel  32:46

Let's get to solar policy, then. For the last question here as we wrap up.

Dan Shugar, Nextracker CEO  32:50

Sure, thanks.

Host: John Engel  32:51

Solar Energy Manufacturing for America Act. And when we were doing our Auxin series, we spent a lot of time talking about the SEMA Act and what it could do for domestic manufacturing, not just a modules, but trackers and other components that go into these these utility-scale farms... than more than utility-scale, but that's primarily what we've been talking about with this trade case. What would that package mean for a company like Nextracker? Does it change the equation given that you've already made a lot of these bets before? I guess in the absence of legislation, like you mentioned, Build Back Better, may it rest in peace. You know, a lot of people were banking on that, and we're hopeful. And then there's some hope that it would come back again, and then that hope was fleeting. So I mean, this is all to say that it could be a while before we see SEMA. But what would that mean for a company like yours? Does it change the equation?

Dan Shugar, Nextracker CEO  33:46

Yeah, look, whether it's SEMA or the Defense Production Act. So President Biden took some deliberative measures a few weeks ago to provide a two year abeyance in tariff from solar panels coming from Southeast Asia. There was no because they're allegations that some of those manufacturers were circumventing a tariff. But that was paired with investment through the defense production act. This, this is a big deal. You know, Jimmy Carter said on the oil situation that happened in the 70s, it was the moral equivalent of war. I mean, it really is. You know, you can't weaponize the sun. Okay. Quoting Secretary Granholm we've seen Putin weaponize oil and gas and so whether it's the SEMA or the Defense Production Act, we need more manufacturing throughout the value chain of solar module US, in every aspect in United States. We applaud the investments First Solar has made in expanding massively their US footprint in solar panels. It needs to also to happen with crystalline. We need more polysilicon, ingot, wafer, cell, modules, and solar glass. And we need to really invest in this whole infrastructure. It's not one thing, it's the whole package. The reason a lot of manufacturing went overseas in solar in the semiconductor industry prior to that is not because labor is cheaper overseas. It is primarily because there is the availability of low-cost capital. And so these programs can make that available with the Defense Production Act and the existing loan programs administered by Jigar Shah at the US Department of Energy. So I really call on everyone participating in the solar value chain, to get up and get it done. And start really investing capacity, so that we start stop getting whipped around by policy actions and concerns about overseas production

Host: John Engel  36:09

Would you change the approach domestically at all, if the Defense Production Act was funded by Congress and incentives came through with SEMA or something else? Would Nextracker up that ante for domestic manufacturing? Or do you say, we already laid the groundwork, and this just makes it a little bit more economical?

Dan Shugar, Nextracker CEO  36:27

Oh, we can do a lot more. For example, I mean, look, the main thing is, the whole pie gets bigger. For example, in our Pittsburgh facility yesterday, we have room to put another line there, you know, so we could do that we would hire additional shifts, policy really matters. So yeah, we've made the investments we have these factories, established, it's much easier to add capacity and factory than it creates something from the beginning. So you know, we really encourage a policy folks to move forward on that. We encourage participants in the solar value chain to move forward with where the policy stands today, because we need more capacity in the solar value chain right now to serve our great developer and owners that have developed such a robust market for solar. Solar dominates the new capacities being added to the grid. Now, today, totally dominates the pipeline for interconnection with these utilities. So we look forward to working with all our stakeholder partners, and really accelerating our solar solar future in us.

Host: John Engel  37:41

Dan Shugar, thanks for joining us.

Dan Shugar, Nextracker CEO  37:43

John it has been a tremendous pleasure joining you today. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak on your program. And thank you for doing this podcast. It's really a treasure for our industry.

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Host: John Engel  38:50

Thanks for listening to this episode of Factor This! I'm John Engel. A quick programming note before we go: Beginning August 1st Factor This becomes a weekly podcast. So we hope you'll join us every Monday. Please leave us a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts. And if you've gotten to this point in the podcast, shoot me an email and let me know what you think of the show. My contact info is in the description for this episode. Thanks for listening as always. We'll see you next time on Factor This!