Mountain Iron solar plant's $10 million upgrade will create 130 new jobs - Duluth News Tribune

Mountain Iron solar plant's $10 million upgrade will create 130 new jobs - Duluth News Tribune | News, weather, and sports from Duluth, Minnesota

Mountain Iron solar plant's $10 million upgrade will create 130 new jobs

With high demand, Heliene is also planning a solar manufacturing facility in the Twin Cities.

MOUNTAIN IRON — An Iron Range solar panel manufacturing facility is adding another 130 jobs.

Ontario-based Heliene Inc. said a $10 million upgrade to one of its Mountain Iron production lines will double the line’s annual output to 300 megawatts. The plant, which opened in 2018, has expanded several times, and this summer, the company announced it had chosen the Twin Cities area as home to its second solar panel manufacturing facility in the state.

“Recent funding and federal incentives are helping us grow our facilities and workforce to keep up with historically high demand for domestically produced solar PV modules,” Heliene CEO Martin Pochtaruk said in a news release Tuesday.

In August, community solar provider Nexamp agreed to purchase 1.5 gigawatts of modules from Heliene, which said it was the largest community solar order in U.S. history.

Solar in the U.S. has seen an average growth rate of 24% over the last decade, according to a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association.

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And incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act are expected to boost it even more, the report said.

“In addition to spurring massive deployment of solar energy, the (Inflation Reduction Act) will bring about a renaissance of U.S. solar manufacturing,” the report said. “More than 98 (gigawatts) of solar module manufacturing capacity has been announced, over 19 GW of which is already under construction.”

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