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European renewables co. expands into US with Houston-area solar panel manufacturing facility

A Turkish solar panel manufacturing company has opened its first US location just outside of Houston. Photo courtesy of Elin Energy

A European company opened a new 225,000-square-foot solar panel assembly facility in Waller County, and it has the capacity to manufacture 2,000 megawatts annually.

Turkish company Elin Energy opened it new space in Twinwood Business Park with the help from Houston real estate development company The Welcome Group and Houston construction company KDW. It's Elin Energy's first location in the United States.

The Waller facility aims to “catapult the company’s growth in the Western hemisphere and reinforce its commitment to sustainable energy production and innovation,” according to a news release. Elin’s panel designs boost the productivity of solar panels by requiring less space than traditional systems.

Photo courtesy of Elin Energy

“The facility [Elin has leased] was designed with generous bay spacing, clear height and upgraded power to accommodate and upgraded power to accommodate a variety of manufacturing needs,” Welcome Wilson Jr., president and CEO of the Welcome Group, says in the release. “Elin Energy’s state-of-the-art solar manufacturing equipment easily fit into the building footprint. The first equipment lines are installed, and the future equipment lines have been ordered.”

One of Europe's top producers of photovoltaic panels, Elin Energy's new facility features two solar panel manufacturing lines. The Waller County Economic Development Partnership and efforts from the state helped bring Elin to the area. Elin aims to bring around 100 jobs by the end of their first year of operations with an estimated 450 by the end of year seven.

KDW completed the build in under 6 months.

“The equipment delivery demanded an aggressive schedule which made it essential that all parties involved have a heightened level of coordination and cooperation,” KDW Construction Manager Bryan Harrison says in the release.

Photo courtesy of Elin Energy

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A View From HETI

Texas outpaced the rest of the country in a new energy resilience report, despite grid challenges and rising AI demand. Photo courtesy of ERCOT

A new report by mineral group Texas Royalty Brokers ranks Texas as the No. 1 most energy-resilient state.

The study focused on four main sources of electricity in hydroelectric dams, natural gas plants, nuclear reactors and petroleum facilities. Each state was given an Energy Resilience Score based on size and diversity of its power infrastructure, energy production and affordability for residents.

Texas earned a score of 71.3 on the report, outpacing much of the rest of the country. Pennsylvania came in at No. 2 with a score of 55.8, followed by New York (49.1) and California (48.4).

According to the report, Texas produces 11.7 percent of the country’s total energy, made possible by the state’s 141,000-megawatt power infrastructure—the largest in America.

Other key stats in the report for Texas included:

  • Per-capita consumption: 165,300 kWh per year
  • Per-capita expenditures: $5,130 annually
  • Total summer capacity: 141,200 megawatts

Despite recent failures in the ERCOT grid, including the 2021 power grid failure during Winter Storm Uri and continued power outages with climate events like 2024’s Hurricane Beryl that left 2.7 million without power, Texas still was able to land No. 1 on an energy resilience list. Texas has had the most weather-related power outages in the country in recent years, with 210 events from 2000 to 2023, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Climate Central. It's also the only state in the lower 48 with no major connections to neighboring states' power grids.

Still, the report argues that “(Texas’ infrastructure) is enough to provide energy to 140 million homes. In total, Texas operates 732 power facilities with over 3,000 generators spread across the state, so a single failure can’t knock out the entire grid here.”

The report acknowledges that a potential problem for Texas will be meeting the demands of AI data centers. Eric Winegar, managing partner at Texas Royalty Brokers, warns that these projects consume large amounts of energy and water.

According to another Texas Royalty Brokers report, Texas has 17 GPU cluster sites across the state, which is more than any other region in the United States. GPUs are specialized chips that run AI models and perform calculations.

"Energy resilience is especially important in the age of AI. The data centers that these technologies use are popping up across America, and they consume huge amounts of electricity. Some estimates even suggest that AI could account for 8% of total U.S. power consumption by 2030,” Winegar commented in the report. “We see that Texas is attracting most of these new facilities because it already has the infrastructure to support them. But we think the state needs to keep expanding capacity to meet growing demand."

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