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Evergreen Solar to build $150M plant in Westborough
Mass High Tech: The Journal of New England Technology
by Catherine Williams | April 17, 2007
Marlborough-based Evergreen Solar Inc. today unveiled plans to build a $150 million solar-panel manufacturing plant in Westborough. The expansion of Evergreen's business is expected to create 350 to 375 jobs in the Bay State, according to state officials.
The state of Massachusetts chipped in a $44 million grant and loan package to Evergreen and to the city of Marlborough to help with construction and infrastructure-improvement costs as a way to help keep those jobs in the Bay State.
Evergreen also announced a partnership with NSTAR that calls for the Massachusetts-based utility to provide solar energy information to its customers and to provide Evergreen with commercial and residential customer leads, according to state officials.
The alliance could translate into skyrocketing sales for Evergreen because NSTAR serves 1.4 million customers in 100 communities across the state. Evergreen's business of developing and manufacturing solar panels made of crystalline silicon using its String Ribbon wafer technology for commercial and residential customers is growing.
So far, 2007 has been a big year for Evergreen, which announced earlier this month a $200 million sales agreement with Maryland-based solar energy service provider SunEdison LLC. The agreement brings the existing contract to $510 million
Despite large sales gains, however, the publicly traded company reported a $26 million net loss on $103 million in revenue in 2006.
Evergreen's decision to expand in Massachusetts, meanwhile, is the first big jobs win for Gov. Deval Patrick, who took office in January. On the stump -- which included a September campaign stop at Evergreen -- Patrick pitched his goal to make the Bay State a center for alternative-energy technology.
The Evergreen deal is also a milestone in building the clean energy sector, said Ian Bowles, Massachusetts secretary of energy and environmental affairs, in a statement to Mass High Tech.
"The message should be loud and clear: Massachusetts is open for business in clean energy," said Bowles.
But Massachusetts has lost 150,000 jobs since 2001 and it is unclear when Evergreen's jobs will come on line.
The hope is Evergreen would draw other clean-energy-related companies by serving as an "anchor tenant of the green energy cluster" in the Bay State, said Warren Leon, director of the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust.
The Renewable Energy Trust is the investment arm of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, which is a quasi-public state agency. The trust is funded through a monthly systems benefit surcharge to all electricity users statewide.
The state's $44 million package includes $10.5 million in grants from the trust. In 2003, the trust made a $2.5 million equity investment in Evergreen and later sold its stake for $8.5 million, according to Leon.
In addition to Massachusetts, Evergreen operates solar panel facilities in Thalheim, Germany, home to two solar-panel facilities run by a joint venture of Evergreen, Q-Cells and REC Group. One plant became operational in March 2006 and a second one is expected to be up and running by the second-quarter 2007, according to company officials.
Evergreen Solar was founded in 1994. In 2005, the company employed 275 in Marlborough. By the end of 2006, the company employed 335 in Marlborough and 350 people at its EverQ 1 factory in Germany.