Solyndra Fab-2 Manufacturing Facility was a fast-track solar panel manufacturing facility totaling 320,000-square-feet, developed to expand production capacity for the company’s cylindrical thin-film photovoltaic systems. The facility combined manufacturing, laboratory, cleanroom, and office environments within a highly specialized industrial setting. It was also the first project of its kind to receive U.S. Department of Energy funding under Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The entire facility was designed with N+1 redundancy to provide additional reliability for its manufacturing and research operations.

CMI served as a key design-build HVAC subcontractor, delivering a 5,000-ton chiller plant, a 750-HP boiler plant, 56 air-handling units, and extensive general and process exhaust systems serving the manufacturing, laboratory, and office spaces. The HVAC system was designed and constructed in just eight months, with the project modeled entirely in BIM/3D and coordinated through Navisworks before installation. To support the aggressive schedule, CMI maximized shop prefabrication of ductwork and piping for just-in-time delivery, including prefabrication of the cooling-tower piping system, which was installed in a single day.