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Mahoning Valley company jobs are now solar-powered
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Bernie Petro, director of engineering at Northern States Metals Co., Youngstown, shows how the flex racks his company makes can accommodate many types of solar panels. The company, which originally produced aluminum extrusions, has adapted to create green jobs in the Mahoning Valley.
The Vindicator ( Youngstown)
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John Cheeks of Niles prepares a load of solar flex rack frames for shipping at Northern States Metals Co., located on the Youngstown’s West Side.
By Karl Henkel
YOUNGSTOWN
As Bernie Petro stands under a tall, aluminum carport, he speaks glowingly of its potential.
“You’re going to see these at car dealerships,” said Petro, chief engineer at Northern States Metals in Youngstown.
“You’re going to see these at Walmart, at Sears, in parking lots, just for their customers.”
This is not just any carport.
Retrofitted with solar panels, it will be used as a plug-in station for new electric vehicles such as the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf. Nissan has sold 3,875 Leafs this year, and General Motors Co. expects to quadruple output for its electric cars in 2012.
“As the electric cars become more popular, you’re going to have get them charged,” Petro said. “There’s a lot of parking lots out there that are basically wasted.”
The carport, still in its prototype stage, has a chance to be the third successful Solar FlexRack model for Northern States Metals, which originally produced aluminum extrusions before adding solar panel racks in 2008.
The other models — a ground mount and a roof mount — have sold well in the western United States and in Canada, the latter thanks to an alternative- energy-friendly government.
The product line also is award-winning. Last year it was named the Mahoning Valley Society of Professional Engineers’ Product of the Year, and most recently won the same honor statewide.
What has made the FlexRack such an innovative product is not so much the configuration, but the design, which is specifically tailored for each order based on weather conditions and one of more than 70 solar panel choices. Northern States Metals has made the racks lighter, more efficient and easier to use.
By assembling the racks at their West Side Youngstown facility, NSM saves time and money on installation costs.
According to the MVSPE, Northern States Metals can install a solar-panel rack in less than three minutes with a three-man crew. Similar units can take up to 30 minutes to install and require a crew of as many as eight workers, he said.
The time savings — and coinciding cost savings, which can save a company hundreds of dollars per rack — is one reason NSM was selected to install racks at Youngstown State University’s Moser Hall.
“You’re replacing field labor with plant assembly,” said Tom Hughes, project manager at M. Sullivan & Sons Ltd. In Ottawa, Ontario. “We experienced a significant savings in time and energy by using the FlexRack as opposed to fabricating rack assemblies in the field.”
M. Sullivan & Sons had 13,000 FlexRacks installed in 2008 and is preparing to add three more solar farms using the NSM product.
Petro said the company is keeping up with the interest, which has doubled each year for the past three years, along with continuing to develop and improve the original product.
“What we do is uncharted territory,” Petro said. “There’s not a model. This is a new frontier for everybody.”