Solar is part of our system
Maxwell's facilities have run on solar-generated electricity since January 2017. Not as an initiative with a page of its own, but as one piece of how the company already worked.
Why a pavement materials manufacturer buys renewable electricity, and why the larger saving is in the product rather than the plant.
Published January 17, 2020 · Updated September 30, 2026
A plant that melts, mixes and packages pavement materials runs on electricity, and where that electricity comes from is a decision somebody has to make. Most of the time nobody makes it. It arrives on the grid and the bill gets paid.
Maxwell made that decision on purpose, and has bought solar power since January 2017.
Build it or buy it
The first idea was to build it. Three companies came out and bid, and what came back was a plan for covered structures across the yard, put up as much to carry panels as to cover anything underneath them.
The arithmetic is unkind at that scale. A plant draws what a plant draws, and the roof needed to meet it had to be enormous before the panels on it were worth having. The cost was substantial, and what it bought was ownership of the equipment along with responsibility for keeping it working.
The other option came from the power company. Rocky Mountain Power was building solar farms in Utah and selling their output to subscribers, which meant the same renewable electricity with nothing to construct and nothing on the roof to keep working.
Maxwell has bought its power that way since January 2017.
“We were looking at building covered structures all over the yard, mostly so we could install solar panels. We needed a huge structure to generate the amounts of energy we use.”
Matt SmithChief financial officer, Maxwell Products
The repave that never happens
It would be easy to file all of that under things a company does so that it can say it did them. It is worth putting next to what we actually make.
A crack sealed at the right time buys a road years before it has to be rebuilt. A rebuild is asphalt refined, mined, mixed, heated, hauled and laid, a lane closed while it happens, and the clock started again. Set against that, the electricity one plant buys is a small number.
Which is why the power is not a separate initiative with its own page. The products earn their keep by holding roads out of the rebuild cycle, and buying renewable electricity is the same idea turned back on the plant that makes them. One of those is the argument. The other is consistency.
“We were primarily interested in solar because it was cleaner. Our products not only save money, but they also save resources, because you don't need to continue to repave the same road if you can make it last longer. So we think renewable energy is in keeping with what we do as a company.”
Ken MaxwellChief executive, Maxwell Products
The air in this valley
There is a reason closer to home. Salt Lake City sits in a bowl with mountains down both sides, and in winter the cold air settles into it and stops moving, holding on to whatever is already in it. Everybody here watches it build, and everybody here is breathing it while it does.
A manufacturer is not a household. The power one plant draws in a year is the power a great many houses draw, and that is the case for a business making the decision on purpose rather than leaving it to the meter.
“The manufacturing industry accounts for much of the energy consumption. Individuals certainly can make a difference, but a business can have a much larger impact. We breathe this air too, right? As a company, we have a responsibility to do what we can.”
Ken MaxwellChief executive, Maxwell Products
Ask us how much longer a sealed road lasts
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