Grape Solar Leads New Solar Manufacturing Consortium in Ontario

HAMILTON, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Investing in solar energy for your manufacturing plant can be expensive and time consuming because of a fragmented component supply chain and a lack of industry expertise, according to Ocean Yuan, the man behind a new solar manufacturing consortium.

“people are confused and our mission from day one in North America is to make solar systems affordable to middle class North Americans for consumers and commercial and industrial markets.”

The consortium aims to change that in Ontario and become the leading supplier of complete solar panel systems for MicroFIT and FIT markets.

“We want to have the supply chain in Ontario and meet the Feed-in Tariff local content requirements,” explains Ocean Yuan, president and CEO of Grape Solar, Eugene, OR, who created the idea of a consortium of manufacturers for the solar energy industry.

“We have already successfully organized a consortium from China that makes all the components on the panel. We have more than 30 manufacturers that make all the components involved in a solar panel system — solar cells, glass, cables, frames, back sheet, front sheet, etc. — and we organized them under the Grape Solar brand to venture into the U.S., and the consortium has been hugely successful.”

Now Yuan is bringing his idea into Ontario, where he says the supply chain for solar energy installations is “fragmented.” He says that “people are confused and our mission from day one in North America is to make solar systems affordable to middle class North Americans for consumers and commercial and industrial markets.”

According to Yuan, “The current problem in Ontario is that energy is expensive and installations are extremely slow due to a fragmented supply chain of companies offering different components and distributors who have little knowledge of the solar business. So we want to establish a supply chain of components and a well-trained installation segment that will allow us to install solar energy systems efficiently and cost effectively.”

The plan is to set up a manufacturing consortium that will begin operations at the beginning of 2011. The consortium will operate under the Grape Solar name and consist of manufacturers of solar panels, inverters, various racking systems, cables and other components.

Consortium partners include: Sungrow from China, the largest inverter manufacturer there; Patriot Solar, a manufacturer of ground-mounted systems and trackers, based in Michigan, USA; Wise Power, a manufacturer of rooftop racking systems for solar panels, based in Delaware, USA; and the list is growing, including Blackstone Solar, a Toronto firm that manufactures solar water heaters.

Angelo Lamanna, Director of Operations at Blackstone Solar, based in Toronto, is enthusiastic about the Consortium: “Grape Solar is one of the very few solar panel manufacturers that understands the challenges of Ontario FIT local content requirement. It is very exciting to see Grape Solar leading the consortium of manufacturers of panels, inverters and racking to meet the local content requirement.”

Ms. Feizhen Lu, CEO of Enersoon in Toronto, which is the joint venture partner of the Sungrow inverter company out of China, said: "We are pleased to participate in the group effort organized by Grape Solar to materialize localization. We are the biggest inverter manufacturer in China, but we just got started in Ontario. Instead of venturing into Ontario alone, this consortium concept really makes perfect sense; we can now leverage our strengths by combining our resources to act faster and more efficiently.”

Bill Clancy, CEO of the Fritz Construction company, based in Chepstow, Ontario, which is one of the largest installation companies for MicroFIT projects in Ontario, is welcoming the news: “Grape Solar’s collaborative business model truly helps Ontario installation companies to adapt to the changing requirements in the Ontario solar market. We are pleased to work with Grape Solar in leading the installation of MicroFIT and FIT projects across Ontario this year and beyond, local content requirements assured.”

Grape Solar organized a tour of the Hamilton area for the consortium’s partners on June 28, says Yuan, “to visit potential manufacturing sites, assess the advantages of the supply chain, particularly the metal forming industry — which we found to have very strong logistics — and, all things considered, the Group felt it was a very positive and successful trip. We’re moving forward to launch this made-in-Ontario manufacturing consortium and we hope to become the largest consortium of its kind in the province to offer a complete system solution for solar panel system manufacturing and installation.”