Governor JB Pritzker joined Manner Polymers, state officials and local leaders on August 28 to cut the ribbon on the company’s new $54 million, 108,000-sq-ft solar-powered manufacturing facility in Mount Vernon, Illinois.

A press release said that the new plant will expand the company’s annual production capacity by 80 million pounds. Its flexible PVC compounds are used for wire and cable, hose and tube, profile extrusion, and sheet products. The plant has a 15-acre solar field, along with additional roof-mounted solar panels, designed to generate nearly all of the electricity the facility requires for its operations. It will provide some 60 jobs.

Manner Polymers CEO Raj Bhargava said that the company’s vision was clear when the expansion project was announced in 2023. That was to “build the lowest cost, highest quality, most environmentally sustainable flexible PVC compounding plant in the world. Not only will we incorporate the most advanced manufacturing control systems available, but we will also produce substantially all the electricity that we use.”

As part of the incentive package, the state of Illinois provided $2.5 million in infrastructure for a new rail spur, which provides direct access to Southern Illinois’ network of rail.