Alex Au

Chief Technology Officer, NEXTracker

Alex Au leads NEXTracker’s technology and engineering, driving the creation of the NEXTracker120 and SPT products and now the NX Horizon and NX Fusion. Most recent product focus has been on long duration energy storage that is fully integrated through software with NX Horizon and an inverter per row. Yes, an out of the box, flexible, renewable baseload power plant in 30kW increments. The software integration allows for full plant control, enabling O&M Services and Predictive Analytics.

The NEXTracker co-founder has over 13 years of PV product development experience, ranging from residential to utility scale applications. As director of advanced technology R&D at Akeena Solar, he helped to invent the Andalay AC module. At SPG Solar he led the SunSeeker G3.2 tracker design, reducing cost by more than 30% compared to previous versions. Au is listed as the sole inventor for the first PV tracker designed to stow for high wind speeds up to 155 mph, and he holds design patents on the Andalay rack and framing, the SunSeeker tracker, and the NEXTrackerSPT. He studied mechanical engineering at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo.