Evergreen Solar Finds Profit In The Sun

MARLBORO, Mass. - Four million manufacturing jobs have vanished from the American economy since 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or almost 25 percent of the entire manufacturing workforce. Layoffs at major companies are nearly daily news

But it’s important to remember that it is still too early to sound the sector’s death knell. While some industries are indeed still laying off hundreds if not thousands of workers, others are ramping up to take them in.

Take Evergreen Solar, for instance. The Marlboro, Massachusetts manufacturer of solar panels has just opened a new plant in Devens, Mass. to help handle its five-year backlog of orders. With the new factory come new green-collar jobs. The company announced this week that it expects to reach full capacity in its manufacturing operations — about 40 megawatts per quarter — in the spring. Evergreen also announced that it was shutting a manufacturing operation in its Marlboro plant as a cash saving measure and transferring most of those employees to the plant in Devens. 

Green-Collar Hiring
The economic downturn is hurting every industrial sector, including solar manufacturers. But so far, according to company executives and market analysts, Evergreen is holding its own. The company has already hired 362 workers for the 450,000 square-foot Devens plant, according to Debbie Cartmell, human resources coordinator for Evergreen, in addition to the 345 already working in Marlboro. The company expects to provide $44 million in salaries and benefits.

Evergreen’s ability to stand against the tide of plant closures and layoffs reflects the continuing economic sturdiness of the clean energy industrial sector. President-elect Barack Obama this week outlined several of his proposals to increase the resiliency of the clean energy industry. The new administration proposes to double the production of alternative energy in three years, and improve energy efficiency in more than 75 percent of federal buildings. Obama also wants to improve the energy efficiency of two million homes, up sharply from the 140,000 homes that the federal government weatherizes each year now, and which generates 8,000 jobs, according to the Department of Energy. Weatherizing 1 million homes, according to the Energy Department, generates 78,000 green-collar jobs.

Clean energy serves as one of the centerpieces of an economic stimulus plan that has a two-year price tag of roughly $800 billion. “We will put Americans to work in new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced,” said the president-elect. “Jobs building solar panels and wind turbines; constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings; and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to even more jobs, more savings, and a cleaner, safer planet in the bargain.”

Very clearly Evergreen Solar is looking at the same data and reaching similar conclusions about the strength of the clean energy market. The company has plans to build a new facility in Midland, Michigan which will employ about 70 people, 38 of them in manufacturing. In all, says Cartmell, the company will have about 1,200 workers by the time it ramps up to full capacity in 2011.

Strategy of Expansion
Evergreen has good reason for needing to expand so quickly. The company already has several large contracts for its solar panels, including a $750 million deal with Ralos Vertriebs and a $1.2 billion contract with IBC Solar AG. Both companies are based in Germany, a signal that the weakened U.S. dollar is making American exports competitive despite rising shipping costs.

An outgrowth of technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Evergreen Solar’s panels are slightly different than other panels on the market. The company developed a way to make panels using much less energy, and less silicon, the costly raw material in photovoltaic cells.

According to spokeswoman Terry Lawson, Evergreen is continually refining the process with the goal of making their solar panels even more affordable. That is one of the critical factors in hoping pricing electricity from the sun at rates equivalent to producing electricity from fossil fuels.

“The best thing is that people are thrilled to be working here,” said Cartmell. “We get so many hiring referrals from our employees and it says a lot about how they feel about the company. It’s becoming a great culture.”

For More Information:

Terry Lawson
Evergreen Solar
Phone: 508-357-2221, ext. 3234

Web site: http://www.evergreensolar.com/app/en/home/

Report on Massachusetts exports, jobs and foreign investment: http://www.ita.doc.gov/td/industry/OTEA/state_reports/massachusetts.html

Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Report:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm