Valmont cuts ribbon on Bristol solar array
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Nebraska-based Valmont Industries cut the ribbon Thursday on a new solar array at its manufacturing facility in Bristol. The company, which makes sustainably-focused concrete utility poles, said the array will offset 100% of the plant’s electricity usage.
The company developed the solar array in partnership with Ameresco, a renewable energy company based in Framingham, Massachusetts.
The solar array includes 70 single-axis trackers from the company’s proprietary ConvertTM solar tracker solution. Valmont said the system follows the sun for optimized generation throughout the day and produces up to 25% more energy generation than fixed solar panels.
The company said the array has the capacity to generate more than 900,000 kilowatt hours of green electricity annually. Any excess energy will go back to the electric grid, Valmont said.
Valmont President of Global Solar Greg Turi discussed benefits of the solar array and eco-friendly concrete mix used at the Bristol plant.
The solar array is part of a continued focus on sustainability for Valmont, which has developed what it calls an eco-friendly concrete mix for its utility poles. The mix includes supplemental cementious materials of steel slag, such as waste material from furnace-burned steel production, which lowers greenhouse gas emissions because it uses less actual concrete.
The Bristol facility is the first to utilize this eco-friendly mix, and Valmont plans to transition all six of its concrete utility pole facilities to use it within the next 12 months.
The rise in electrification, the company said, means that U.S. transmission capacity must increase by about 60%, leading to a greater demand for the concrete poles that Valmont produces.
“Grid hardening has fundamentally changed the utility pole market and we are innovating with a sustainably focused mindset to meet the demand,” Valmont President Aaron Schapper said in a news release.
Valmont said it plans to ramp the facility up to full operations by 2025. The facility currently has nearly 40 employees, and the company has plans to add more, though a specific number was not provided.