eSolar’s approach to concentrated solar power (CSP) just got a boost with from Sanmina-SCI. The company is working with eSolar to design and manufacture its unique solar thermal tower systems.

Unlike most solar thermal towers, designed to provide hundreds of megawatts of power, eSolar’s towers are smaller, at 4 megawatts. But the company, who’s partners include GE, puts many of the towers together to produce utility-scale solar thermal systems.

The new partnership with Sanmina will help the company gain access to the international market. “Sanmina-SCI is providing both design engineering services and system level manufacturing. eSolar will leverage Sanmina-SCI’s vertical integration capabilities for EMS, PCB, cables, enclosures, and design service,” said Tom Clawson, Executive VP of Quality and Operational Excellence, Sanmina-SCI. “Because of our global footprint we can source local content worldwide to optimize their products for manufacturability, scalability and cost-efficiency and meet regional compliance requirements.”

Sanmina also is working with eSolar to make its system better, according to Clawson. “Sanmina-SCI’s design team is working with eSolar’s design team on product reliability, cost mitigation and manufacturability for high volume production,” he said. “We are focused at all levels of the overall system from components to system level. Our team will design some of the key building blocks for eSolar's modular and scalable utility projects, and help bring online more large-scale solar projects.”

It’s not Sanmina’s first foray into solar or renewable energy. “We’ve been providing design and manufacturing services for the global renewable energy market for over five years. Just in the last 18 months we’ve entered into agreements with eSolar, Satcon, Emerson, Santerno, KACO and Sparq to bring commercial and consumer solar products to market,” Clawson said.

Sanmina sees itself as a partner to the industry. “We are committed to helping the clean technology sector grow to its full potential and have made significant investments in related technologies such as optical components to support this effort. Partnering with leading-edge companies like these to introduce innovative new products to market is important to Sanmina-SCI’s overall clean technology strategy,” Clawson said.

The companies are already working on introducing eSolar’s next generation of products. They’re looking to develop such products primarily in North African and the Middle East, which includes India, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, according to Clawson.

Image courtesy of eSolar