Komax Solar expands in York

Solar panels capture and concentrate energy. So it’s appropriate that Komax Solar, which manufactures the automation equipment used to produce crystalline solar panels, has captured and concentrated its three former York County locations into one.

Last week the Swiss-owned firm cut the ribbon on a new consolidated facility in Springettsbury Township. The $7.5 million, 100,000 square foot facility more than doubles the previous capacity of the firm, which now employs 120 workers. Komax Solar has been growing rapidly over the past three years, tripling its local workforce, and Jim Brown, the company’s sales engineer for North America, says the company hopes to hire more as the economy revives.

The York County operations are one of three divisions of the solar business unit of The Komax Group. Brown says that the plant’s automated interconnection machines for solar panel manufacturing are shipped mainly overseas, with sales in Asia, Europe, and India exceeding those in the U.S.

“At our major customers in the U.S., expansion plans are in process,” says Brown. “We see a lot of activity coming from the state level. The federal money [stimulus and renewable energy funds] is really not there yet. When the federal money does come in, it will be very busy.”

Komax’s new facility, on a total of seven acres, received state job creation and opportunity grants totaling $600,000.

Source: Jim Brown, Komax Solar
Writer: Chris O’Toole