Valmont Industries, a global provider of engineered products and services for infrastructure development and irrigation equipment and services for agriculture, celebrated the interconnection of its 1-MW solar field at its manufacturing facility in Valley, Nebraska.
“We are excited to improve our sustainability performance with the interconnection of this solar field, which is expected to produce 1.7 GWh of grid-independent power annually for our Valley facility,” said Stephen G. Kaniewski, president and CEO. “Using our own Valmont solar tracker technology, the field will provide the Valley campus with 6% of its electricity needs.”
The new solar array is the largest privately-owned, behind-the-meter solar field in Nebraska, spanning 4.3 acres. Convert, a Valmont company, supplied 45 tracker tables making the array. Created with weather and natural disaster mitigation in mind, the array’s transformers and inverters are raised 7 ft above the ground to guard against flooding and include railing and access systems galvanized at the Valmont Coatings facility in Valley to ensure long-term structural resiliency.
“Valmont continues to grow the Good Life by investing in Nebraska,” said Gov. Pete Ricketts. “The newly built solar field in Valley showcases Valmont’s innovation and contributes to the diverse energy resources we have in our state.”
Valmont’s employees and leadership team hosted the ribbon-cutting event with local community leaders and business partners.
“We are proud to operate the largest solar field of this kind in the state of Nebraska, and commemorate this achievement safely with our community,” Kaniewski said. “Valmont has a 75-year history of conserving water, energy and raw materials and this latest achievement reinforces our commitment to innovating with sustainability in mind. Our goal is to conserve resources so that we can continue providing products and services that enhance the lives of customers, employees and communities locally and worldwide.”
