Being the Valley of the Sun, we should be the Valley of Solar. Exporting energy to other states and bringing high paying jobs to Arizona. This is not the only alternative energy that would work here, but the one to discuss today. I have heard people say, Solar is just buying panels from China and shipping our money there. Not with First Solar you don’t. First solar has no factories in China. They have rewarded the communities that have made their products safe to the swings in energy costs. Germany and Spain have manufacturing and research facilities. Not China! Although, China will have them soon….

With the swings in energy costs it is difficult for a solar company to compete. Funny, I never see the cost of my electricity go down, just up. A solar company can invest Billions of dollars in their product only to see that wiped out by low energy costs. You see no one cares about solar when energy is cheap. The energy companies have done a great job of running up the price, then flooding the market with cheap energy to put the alternative guys out of business. Imagine, you invest $1 billion in a solar plant. Then energy gets real cheap for a year or two, no one buys from you. You go out of business, your plants become dated and just when you are scraped; energy is expensive again. That is the roller coaster and it works well for the fossil fuel guys.

The reality is that demand for energy will grow by 50% over the next 25 years. We can either innovate and be a leader or buy it from China. What do you want to do?

Just my opinion…Jeff Cameron

Tempe’s First Solar considering Mesa for site of sun-panel factory

by Betty Beard – Feb. 19, 2011 07:50 AM
The Arizona Republic

First Solar Inc., the world’s second-largest manufacturer of solar panels, is considering building a factory in Mesa, bringing about 600 new jobs to metro Phoenix, according to sources close to the deal.

First Solar is headquartered in Tempe but its solar-panel factories are in Ohio, Germany and Malaysia, with additional plants planned in France, Vietnam and possibly China.

Should the plan come to fruition, Mesa would be home to the fast-growing company’s second U.S. solar-panel factory. It opened its first in Perrysburg, Ohio.

First Solar has about 5,500 employees worldwide, with about four-fifths of them outside the United States. About 190 are based in Arizona.

The company announced in October that it planned to build two new manufacturing plants, one in the U.S. and the other in Vietnam, and that each will have about 600 workers.

Texas and Arizona were reportedly in the running for that U.S. plant.

First Solar spokesman Ted Meyer on Friday declined to confirm that the company is zeroing in on Mesa.

“We have not made a decision yet,” he said. Read the rest of the story HERE!