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| Abound Solar manufacturing facility in Longmont, Colorado. Photo credit: Abound Solar. |
When a joint venture between automakers Getrag and Chrysler fell through in 2008, leaving an empty 800,000 sq. ft. factory in Tipton County, the Central Indianan community’s disappointment was palpable. The 800 workers who had hoped to gain employment at the plant had no choice but to search for work far from home. “Two-thirds of our workforce left the county to go to the north, the other third went south, into the suburbs,” lamented Gayle Van Sessen, the director of the Tipton County Community and Economic Development Corporation.
This July, however, Tipton finalized plans with Abound Solar to convert the empty facility into what the company says will be the largest solar panel manufacturing plant in the United States. “Awesome … is a very good word for it,” said Van Sessen, about Abound’s plan to invest $500 million in the plant, which will produce up to 640 megawatts of solar modules annually, and generate 850 jobs for Tipton County. “Abound has opened up a door – a huge, warehouse door – for us to develop green energy,” she said.
The jobs created by Abound Solar’s new factory will offer competitive wages, ranging from $17 to $25 an hour (compared to the average Indiana wage of $18.70). Significantly, these jobs promise long-term stability in rough economic times. “The jobs we’re creating are ongoing jobs, building up manufacturing capacity,” said Mark Chen, Abound Solar’s director of marketing. “It’s been nothing but positive comments from the local constituents, as we’re bringing in good jobs in an industry that’s growing incredibly quickly – everybody is looking forward to it.”
The road to get Abound Solar to Tipton involved a series of innovative maneuvers and hard work by Tipton County officials. While Abound received a $400 million, seven-year conditional loan guarantee from the Department of Energy – three quarters of which it will use to retrofit the new Tipton factory – the availability of the empty Getrag facility was a crucial factor in the company’s decision to locate in Tipton.
Ironically, although Abound will provide jobs to American workers, most of its solar panels will be sent to other countries. “The vast majority of our product will be exported to foreign countries,” said Chen, which have stronger incentives and larger markets for clean energy. Chen believes Abound can compete with its international rivals and continue manufacturing in the U.S. – even as its U.S.-based counterparts send their production abroad – because of the company’s superior production lines and cadmium-telluride thin film technology.
In a global solar market that has been growing between 30 and 60 percent per year for the past decade, Chen still believes that significant demand for renewable energy technologies will develop in the U.S. over the next three to five years. Whether his prediction bears out remains to be seen. Until then, Tipton County will produce solar panels for whichever countries most aggressively pursue a clean energy economy.
