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Solar panel maker may bring 282 jobs to Millville
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MILLVILLE - A New York company plans to open a solar panel manufacturing facility in Millville that would employ 282 people, many of them local glassworkers.
IPP Solar confirmed plans Thursday to partner with Italian producer MX Group and unnamed investors in Taiwan and China to produce the panels at a retrofitted glass factory in Millville.
"We are shovel-ready and ready to go," said Michael Latefi, vice president of business development for IPP, a year-old development firm based in New York City.
IPP targeted Millville in part because of a series of governmental incentives that will provide funding and tax breaks, including the city's Urban Enterprise Zone, a loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy and a federal investment tax credit. The firm also liked the presence of current and former glassworkers in the area, who IPP representatives hope will provide a source of skilled labor. The New Jersey Economic Development Authority will provide grants worth about $2.4 million over 10 years, with the money awarded only after jobs are created, spokeswoman Nicole Royle said.
"All these things overlap in Millville," Latefi said. "In solar, you have to be able to move glass. In Millville, they know how to do that."
IPP plans to have all its operations based in the U.S., which Latefi says would make it the first solar panel manufacturing company based entirely in the U.S. Latefi said competitors are either based completely or partially overseas. The company will buy materials from a San Francisco-based company Latefi declined to name and then produce solar cells and modules at the Millville site.
Historically, most American solar companies have been unable to compete with those in Europe and Asia because of higher production costs and lower demand. Latefi said his firm is confident that government incentives and increased demand for solar power - particularly in New Jersey, which provides Solar Renewable Energy Certificate, or SREC, financing to solar power investors - would allow the Millville plant to outpace competitors in China and Europe. New Jersey currently has the nation's second-largest solar power market and now has more than 100 megawatts of solar power production. While that total is similar to the size of many nonrenewable-energy power plants, the state had only six solar facilities seven years ago.
Latefi said city officials are working to craft a plan to draw other related firms to the area, such as companies that install solar panels or work with electricity inverters to convert AC electricity to DC electricity.
"What we want to do in Millville is make it the next Silicon Valley of silver," Latefi said, referencing the silver that is used to produce the panels.
Mayor Tim Shannon and other city officials declined comment.
Millville's heritage is as a glass town, thanks largely to the area's naturally sandy grounds. Millville, Bridgeton and Vineland had a combined 47 glass producers, according to Gay Taylor, the retired curator of the Museum of American Glass in Millville. A sand-mining industry sprouted to support the industry, but over the last 20 years, both industries have gradually faded in the area. The increasing use of plastics marginalized glassmaking, and most glass companies in the region have closed.
"At one time, Millville was one of the major glassmaking regions in the world," Taylor said.
State Assemblyman Nelson Albano said he hoped IPP's opening could help jumpstart the local economy and that he and local government officials were pushing hard for IPP to open shop in Millville. He said IPP representatives visited Millville this month and are considering a warehouse currently used for glass storage. The company has been in contact with representatives from several branches of state government, including the Board of Public Utilities and Governor's Office.
"This is good news for the (southern New) Jersey region, bringing in jobs for the energy industry," said Robert Corrales, a spokesman for Gov. Jon S. Corzine.
The project would mark IPP's first manufacturing facility. The company has partnered in and signed several solar power development deals, but none has been publicized yet because they are not complete, Latefi said.
MX Solar is based in Villasanta, Italy, just outside the city of Milan, and has produced solar panels for the European market.
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Posted in CUMBERLAND | TOP THREE on Thursday, October 15, 2009 10:10 pm Updated: 11:27 pm.
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