A solar equipment maker has pulled its assembly and distribution operations out of Juarez, Mexico, and set up shop in El Paso, Texas, joining a wave of manufacturers retreating from the border city amid tariff pressure and shrinking factory employment there. SnapNrack, a subsidiary of Sunrun, will mark the move with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony at its new facility on November 4.
The new El Paso site has fully onshored SnapNrack's assembly and distribution work from its former facility in Juarez, according to Solar Power World. The outlet reports that shifting operations across the border eliminates the international customs friction and cross-border transfer delays that come with shuttling product between Mexico and the United States. As pv magazine USA notes, SnapNrack frames the move as part of a broader commitment to U.S. manufacturing and supply chain security.
From its new Texas base, SnapNrack can tap into regional transportation networks that didn't offer the same efficiency across an international line. The facility uses the I-10 and I-25 interstate corridors along with the region's southern gateway rail network to move product nationwide, per a report from North American Clean Energy citing the company's own materials. That same account notes the setup replaces cross-border logistics with centralized assembly and distribution located entirely within Texas.
Why the Border Shift Makes Financial Sense
SnapNrack says onshoring protects its value chain against international regulatory shifts and tariff volatility, according to the same North American Clean Energy report.
Federal tax guidance does lay out a domestic-content bonus credit tied to renewable energy projects. Per the Internal Revenue Service, that bonus applies to facilities or projects using required amounts of domestically produced steel, iron, and manufactured products. A related Internal Revenue Service notice from June 2024 modified an existing domestic-content safe harbor, expanded the list of eligible project types to include hydropower facilities, and renamed the utility-scale photovoltaic category to cover both ground-mount and rooftop systems.
Juarez's Manufacturing Exodus
SnapNrack's departure lands amid a steep decline in Juarez's maquiladora manufacturing sector. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reports that Ciudad Juarez, described as Mexico's sixth-largest city and a critical manufacturing hub directly across the border from El Paso, shed roughly 57,500 maquiladora jobs between mid-2023 and mid-2025 — an 18% drop in manufacturing employment. Maquiladora employment in the city fell from 317,000 workers in August 2023 to 259,500 by August 2025, the Dallas Fed found.
The regional Fed bank attributes the contraction to a mix of higher labor costs, peso appreciation, tariffs, and a structural shift toward automation and away from low-margin, labor-intensive production. SnapNrack's relocation fits within that broader pattern of manufacturers pulling assembly work north of the border rather than expanding it in Juarez.
Part of a Wider U.S. Solar Manufacturing Push
SnapNrack isn't alone in building out domestic solar manufacturing capacity this year. Solar Power World has also reported that SEG Solar opened a second module factory in Tomball, Texas, while PV Hardware USA is expanding its Houston manufacturing facility to boost solar-tracker production. First Solar, meanwhile, inaugurated the first 1.7-gigawatt phase of a $330 million module-manufacturing facility in Gaffney, South Carolina, according to PV Tech. That South Carolina plant is expected to eventually reach 3.4 gigawatts of annual capacity with nearly 700 employees finishing modules initiated overseas, per pv magazine USA.
SnapNrack describes itself as a leading manufacturer of solar mounting and racking solutions built on a philosophy of being made by installers, for installers, and the company says it has served over a million homes across North America. As a wholly owned subsidiary and corporate brand of Sunrun Inc., which trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker RUN, SnapNrack's move gives its Texas-based parent company one more link in its supply chain brought fully onshore ahead of next week's ribbon-cutting.
