Solar equipment provider Spire Corporation (Nasdaq: SPIR) is expanding to meet the growing global demand for solar energy.
The company, which provides turnkey solar factories and capital equipment to manufacture photovoltaic modules, today announced it has expanded into an additional 53,000 square feet of solar equipment manufacturing space at its Bedford, Massachusetts headquarters facility.
The company now maintains a total of approximately 144,000 square feet of manufacturing and headquarters space at this location, according to the release.
“Spire’s solar capital equipment business is benefiting from the confluence of two powerful market forces,” said Roger G. Little, Spire’s chairman and CEOr. “Global demand for solar power is accelerating, and manufacturers of photovoltaic wafers, cells and modules anticipate greater availability of solar-grade silicon – the industry’s primary raw material – within the next year. They want to have new factory capacity in place to take advantage of these market forces, which is creating unprecedented new requirements for solar capital equipment. Spire is committed to helping meet this growing demand.”
Rodger W. LaFavre, COO of Spire said, “The increased manufacturing space and capacity is necessary to respond effectively to our customers’ demand for new equipment and facilities. We are fortunate to be able to expand within our present facility to minimize disruptions and to scale up efficiently. We have signed a long-term lease at a competitive rate to secure this space and we have room to expand further within the same facility.”
Along with increasing its manufacturing capacity, Spire says it has nearly doubled its staff to more than 205 in its Bedford facility, including contract assembly workers.
LaFavre said the combination of new space and staff will give Spire an annual manufacturing capacity for equipment of more than 500 MW.
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