Ikea to help Meyer Burger boost gigascale US solar panel output

European solar panel manufacturer Meyer Burger has closed a four-year offtake agreement with Ingka Investments, the investment unit of the parent of furniture retailer Ikea, in the US.

The deal closed in late March will help Meyer Burger boost its annual module output capacity in its Goodyear, Arizona, factory to about 2GW, from 1.6GW previously.

The agreement covers the supply of solar modules from 2025 to 2029.

„This agreement is an excellent start, both for our ambitions to invest further in renewable energy production in the US and for our partnership with Meyer Burger, a company with high ESG standards and a shared commitment to make significant contributions to decarbonization and the 1.5 degree target of the Paris Climate Agreement,” said Frederik de Jong, Head of Renewable Energy at Ingka Investments.

The solar panels will be produced on a new glass-to-glass product platform and are electrically and size optimized for utility-scale applications. Meyer Burger said they feature exceptionally low degradation and have a bifaciality of over 90%.

„We are very pleased to cooperate with Ingka Investments, who will support us in the rapid ramp-up of our production in the US through this offtake agreement,” Meyer Burger chief operating officer Daniel Menzel said.

The manufacturer said it will receive a ‘substantial’ annual down payment from Ingka Investment to procure and finance equipment, materials and raw materials for solar module production, but the company didn’t specify the amount.

The offtake agreement is one of two closed by Meyer Burger recently, which didn’t reveal the name of the second client.

Meyer Burger last year had already signed a binding agreement with developer D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI) to supply at least 3.75GW of solar modules for large-scale solar projects in the US, with delivery also foreseen in the 2024-29 period.