London celebrated the grand opening of a new manufacturing plant, KACO new energy, Inc., on Friday, May 6th 2011. KACO new energy, headquartered in Germany, is a global green energy company and among the world’s largest producers of solar inverters. Solar inverters convert the energy absorbed by solar panels and transfer it to the hydro grid.
The new KACO factory in London, Ontario has over 30,000 sq ft of manufacturing and warehouse space to ensure 2GW of production capacity. By the end of 2011 the company plans to produce around 1GW of PV inverters for Canada.
Ralf Hoffman, President of KACO head office based in Germany, and Peter Flachsmann, CEO based in San Francisco, spoke about their commitment to Ontario and to London. Local MPPs and MPs and over 200 guests, customers and media attended the ribbon cutting at the plant on Robin’s Hill Road which is located at the Skyway Industrial Park next to the London International Airport.
The rapidly growing market in Ontario sparked KACO to build an environmentally friendly facility that can provide top quality blueplanet brand inverters to the distributors, project developers, installers and end users of photovoltaic in Canada.
London will be KACO’s North American manufacturing hub, shipping inverters across Canada and into the U.S. and Mexico. Staff at the London facility has grown to almost 20 full time employees, with the goal of reaching over 100 full time employees before the year’s end.
Mayor Joe Fontana announced London Hydro will place orders with the new business for two solar-panel projects totalling about 350 kW to be developed in the city.
"We are determined to make London a centre for solar energy," Fontana told the gathering at the new plant. "These are made in London and we want to support London. We want to get in the business of solar generation.”
KACO new energy President, Ralf Hofmann says “We at KACO are excited to be a part of the London community and to contribute to the growing Solar Market in Canada. We are looking forward to providing our top quality reliable blueplanet inverters to the market for years to come. We’re glad to know that our work here is providing jobs to local people and that our products will provide clean energy for the Ontario province.”
KACO USA CEO Peter Flachsmann told attendees at the open house: “We’re proud to offer the province of Ontario the addition of the KACO new energy facility in London. We will bring high quality solar manufacturing, engineering, sales and marketing jobs and we’ll work as hard as we are able to provide top of the line KACO inverters as we have around the world for decades. We are happy to say that KACO is officially a member of the Ontario community and we look forward to sharing our carbon neutral manufacturing process with the business community of London.”
To watch the LEDC’s coverage of the KACO grand opening in London click here.
