Fronius USA is expanding its headquarters in Portage, Indiana and adding a data center.

The company is investing in its 400,000 sq ft (37,161 sqm) manufacturing facility to enable it to add a new data center and introduce solar inverter production lines. The site will also be hiring new research and development engineers.

Solar inverters, also known as photovoltaic inverters, convert the variable direct current of the solar panel into an alternating current that can be used by the grid or an off-grid electrical network.

Details about the data center are sparse, including its size and purpose, but DCD has contacted the company for more information.

“We are very pleased to announce that Portage, Indiana is a key part of our business development strategy,” said Klaus Strassmair, managing director at Fronius USA. “This will create a wide range of jobs, from advanced manufacturing, technical support, and sales positions to software developers.”

The investment in the facility will see Fronius USA adding around 300 employees to its workforce, more than doubling it.

Once expanded, the inverter manufacturing capacity at the site will be 1GW in 2024, though this is expected to expand to 7GW in the course of five years.

In addition to manufacturing the inverters, Fronius will use the facility for testing and analyzing the performance of its products in order to develop next-generation solutions.

Fronius was founded in Austria in 1945. The family-owned business is involved in welding, battery charging, and solar energy solutions, and has been active in the US since 2002.

Solar power is a very popular renewable energy source used in the data center industry, with many companies signing PPA's globally including Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Iron Mountain among others.