SolarWorld has been doing strong business in U.S. island territories with its U.S. manufactured solar photovoltaic panels despite the islands’ vicinity to cheaper panels from China and Taiwan and Korea.

The Oregon-based company has installed major solar photovoltaic arrays on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, in American Samoa and in Guam.

“They are all U.S. territories,” said SolarWorld spokeswoman Devon Cichoski. “And it is important to them to support the U.S. economy and solar industry.”

She said some of the island territories may also have been nudged toward U.S. products by federal stimulus funds that are only available for U.S. manufactured solar products in most cases.

Among SolarWorld’s new island installations is a 1,600-foot long array of ground-mounted panels paralleling a runway at the Cyril E. King Airport on St. Thomas.

The 150-kilowatt system will be unveiled Sept. 14.

American Samoa will soon have 17 solar-clad buildings generating 350 kilowatts of power. The installation will include 10 schools and seven government buildings. The project follows quickly on the heels of a 680-kilowatt installation on 24 buildings in American Samoa.

The western Pacific island of Guam also has solar fever with a recent 24.84-kilowatt system installed on a community college library roof and plans to install another 29.4-kilowatt system on the roof of the health education building at the community college, according to a release from SolarWorld.

“A lot of these installations came to us through our partner installers,” Cichoski said. “Some are based on the islands and some who do a lot of business on the islands.”

The island installations are effective and important in helping these islands gain independence from costly oil-based energy sources. Electicity rates can exceed 40 cents per kilowatt hour in many instances, according to the press release.

“Tropical islands may be the stuff of fantasy,” president of SolarWorld Americas Kevin Kilkelly said in a statement, “but the reality of island electricity rates is driving strong adoption of SolarWorld panels as an effective form of rate relief.”

As demand for solar grows, SolarWorld aims to supply modules to U.S. territories and is happy to find the islands supporting American industry.

“We get approached by Taiwan and Korea to buy their products because they’re just around the corner, but it’s very important to us to support the U.S. economy,” said Scott Hagen of Pacific Solar, which installed the arrays on Guam.

Image courtesy of SolarWorld