Solar panel maker gets low-cost electricity
Sunworks pledges to create 175 jobs
The state Power Authority has awarded a large block of low-cost hydropower to a fledgling California company that plans to build a plant in Western New York to manufacture solar panels.
Sunworks Solar plans to spend $200 million to build a plant that would employ 175. The New York Power Authority on Tuesday agreed to allocate five megawatts of hydropower, which it will sell to the San Francisco-based company for about one-quarter the market rate.
The plant would build large solar panels for utilities. Pay would range from $40,000 to over $100,000 a year, depending on the position.
Company officials said they have not yet selected a site, but that it would be in Western New York. A construction timetable is also up in the air. Work could start as soon as next spring.
The company was founded last year and does not operate a plant, but is in negotiations to build several in differing locales.
Sunworks Solar would be one of the larger buyers of low-cost hydropower from the authority. The five megawatt allocation is the fifth-largest made by the authority since 2006 and is eight-times larger than the typical allocation made by the authority during that period.
The deal would save the company an estimated $1.6 million a year, or $9,352 per job. By contract, the average deal made by the authority since 2006 provides annual savings of $11,833 per job.
The deal also compares favorably in terms of the amount of private investment the power leverages. On average, deals done by NYPA since 2006 produce $11,451 of investment for each kilowatt allocated. The Sunworks deal would generate nearly four times more investment, or $40,000.
The allocation marks the continuation of a trend by the authority to earmark large blocks of power to green manufacturing concerns.
In recent years, the authority has committed 40 megawatts to Globe Metals, which is refurbishing a plant in Niagara Falls to produce metallurgical-grade silicon for use in the manufacture of solar panels, and five megawatts each to ethanol plants proposed for Buffalo and Niagara Falls.
None of those facilities are operating yet, however. Globe is still overhauling its plant and the ethanol plants are still on the drawing board.
In the meantime, the authority is selling the allocated, but unused power at market rates and keeping the proceeds. U. S. Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, is pressing the authority to keep those proceeds in Western New York.
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