Looking Back, Looking Forward: OMCO Solar’s Director of Solar Technology Shares His Perspective on Company Progress

By: Matt Kesler, Director of Solar Technology, OMCO Solar
Looking back, the last two years have been a heck of a time for our industry.
We’ve experienced positives and negatives: rapid growth, widespread adoption of bifacial technology, new tariffs, a volatile materials supply chain, and a pandemic. In addition, from 2010 to 2020, the cost of energy dropped a whopping 82% for photovoltaic solar, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) in its Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2019 report.

Together, we solar folks have dealt with it all, and emerged stronger than ever.

Ours is now the go-to technology for new electric energy capacity in the US. According to the US Department Of Energy, in the first half of this year, 47% of new electric energy capacity was solar.

As the industry has progressed, OMCO Solar is proud to have helped by offering cost-effective, easy to install, high-performance fixed racks and trackers, with short lead times, and OMCO’s above-and-beyond customer service.

Our Choice and Field-Fast fixed racks have emerged among the leading fixed-tilt solutions in North America, and in 2019 we launched OMCO Origin™ Factory-Direct Trackers.

Over the last 12 months we have shipped more than 1 GW of OMCO Solar branded products, and to date we have more than 9 GW of solar shipments.

This year we are expanding shipments of Origin trackers, including 1-in-portrait monofacial trackers and 2-in-landscape bifacial trackers. Origin bifacial trackers increase production by keeping the back side of the modules open – no torque tube or other structure behind the modules – for higher back side production and more uniform irradiance. Our unique folding frame makes 2-in-landscape trackers practical due to low shipping costs and quick installation.

Analysis shows up to 4 cents per watt added value, which has driven quick acceptance of our bifacial trackers.

Customer response to Origin bifacial trackers has exceeded our expectations. We knew that customers would place value on high specific production – what’s a tracker for, if not to increase the energy produced? But I was surprised by how much value customers put on the longer-term issue: significantly

improved back side irradiance uniformity means reduced cell and module degradation over many years. It’s a more subtle issue, and I did not realize so many customers were focused on it.

With all our products, our factory-direct business model – shipping everything from our plants in Ohio, Indiana, Alabama and Arizona – has kept our lead times low – typically 8 weeks, compared with more than 20 weeks from other suppliers. To serve our customers, our team is growing. We are bringing excellent people into solar, and experienced solar people are joining us too.

The last couple of years have been uniquely challenging, but working with our suppliers and customers we see a bright future for solar in the US, and we are excited to be able to contribute to it.

Contact us today to learn more about how working with OMCO Solar can benefit your next project.

OMCO Origin, Choice, and Field-Fast are trademarks of OMCO Solar.

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2021-09-30T21:42:22+00:00September 30th, 2021|
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