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MassDevelopment In The News
A Brighter Idea - Solar Panel Builder Starts Work on $165 Million Plant
September 13, 2007: Worcester Telegram & Gazette, by Martin Luttrell
DEVENS — Standing shoulder to shoulder with state officials, Richard M. Feldt pushed his shovel into the sandy loam piled on Lot 2, smiled for an array of cameras, and looked into the sun-drenched sky on the spot where his company will build a plant that will manufacture solar panels.
For Evergreen Solar Inc., of which Mr. Feldt is president and chief executive officer, the new manufacturing plant will be a step toward greater productivity and making solar-produced electricity less expensive.
Evergreen currently has a plant capable of manufacturing 12 megawatts of solar panels a year at its Marlboro headquarters, and has a partnership, EverQ in Germany, which operates a 100-megawatt plant near Berlin.
The $165 million Devens facility will produce 75 megawatts, and is expected to be running at full capacity by Christmas of next year, Mr. Feldt told the gathering of about 60 at yesterday’s groundbreaking ceremony.
"We believe it will give us the capacity to increase factory yields and reduce overall factory costs to get solar closer to grid-produced electricity," he said. "We sell 12 megawatts annually in a market that’s a couple of million megawatts, so we’re pretty small."
He said that the new plant will add 350 new employees to the company, more than doubling its Massachusetts work force, and contribute more than $16 million in salaries annually.
The company’s Marlboro facility, which also includes a science and technology facility, and its 300 employees will remain there.
As the price of solar-produced electricity comes down, awareness of solar is driven by fossil fuels and global warming, he said.
"The German market has benefited from strong government subsidies for several years," Mr. Feldt said. "Government subsidies are important today, because today solar energy is more expensive than the grid, and we’re working hard to reduce the cost so that solar-produced energy is comparable to grid electricity."
"We are excited about the future of solar and of Evergreen Solar, in particular," he said.
The company is receiving $23 million in grants, up to $17.5 million in low-interest loans and a low-cost 30-year lease of state-owned property for the Devens plant.
Several state officials and legislators joined Mr. Feldt on the makeshift stage, and more were in the audience, along with Evergreen officials and employees. Two giant yellow earthmoving vehicles provided a backdrop on the hard, flat field of dun-colored stubble.
State Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian A. Bowles said state incentives for solar energy would likely be unveiled by the Legislature in the fall.
"Governor Patrick is committed to making Massachusetts a global leader in clean energy technology, and having Evergreen Solar build its first large-scale U.S. manufacturing plant here is a big step in that direction," Mr. Bowles said. "Today we are breaking ground not only on a factory, but on the Commonwealth’s clean energy future."
Robert L. Culver, president and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency, lauded the efforts that streamlined the permitting process, making it easier and quicker for Evergreen to start work on the site. The agency owns 4,400 acres of the former Fort Devens and is overseeing its development.
"When you work at Devens, you get a certain feeling — I call it a Feng shui — of this place," he said. "I mean that Devens has for the last century been a place where the commonwealth has prepared for the future.
"Today, with many of the companies, notably with Evergreen, this whole area is an environment that people come to...to think and work and do what they do to further the future of the commonwealth and of the country."
Mr. Culver said that the state has put $200 million into development at Devens, garnering more than $1 billion in private investment.
"The payroll return annually is more than a quarter of a billion dollars," he said. "At five percent, that’s not bad for tax returns for Massachusetts. We have created one of the most forward-looking places for industry in the state, if not the country."
There are more than 80 companies in the Devens commerce park, including a 355,000-square-foot manufacturing plant that American Superconductor Corp. opened in 2001. A $750 million drug manufacturing plant is also under construction by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
© Copyright 2007 Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
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