North American 2015 Solar PV Tracker Market Led By NEXTracker

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The North American solar PV tracker market increased by 135% to 5.5 GW in 2015, led by California-based NEXTracker.

According to IHS’ latest solar PV tracker rankings, the market grew by 135% year-over-year to see 5.5 GW shipped in 2015. This growth was led by NEXTracker, which saw its market share grow 22% over 2014, becoming the leading supplier of solar PV tracker technology in North America. Array Technologies fell to second spot, but still managed to increase unit shipments by a factor of 2.5, with the rest of the top 5 including First Solar, SunPower, and Sun Action Trackers.

“Leading module producers like First Solar and SunPower remained in the top five rankings in 2015, thanks to their large ground-mount utility-scale pipeline,” said Camron Barati, North America solar analyst for IHS Technology. “SunPower’s market share loss can be attributed to lumpiness of the company’s utility-scale development business, which greatly affected its single-axis tracker shipments.”

The top five single-axis tracker suppliers accounted for more than 90% of the market in 2015, and IHS is still expecting new entrants to intensify competition in 2016.

“Although the North American tracker market has traditionally been dominated by US suppliers such as NEXTracker and Array Technologies, European suppliers including Exosun, Clavijo, Ideematec, Soltec, and Optimum Tracker are also active and continuing to expand, which is adding some price pressure to the market,” Barati said.

IHS expects future mergers and acquisitions to grow in the next two years, as leading engineering, procurement, and construction companies seek to become more vertically integrated.