Solar Panels, 800.292.7648
• 2008-Mar-30 - Washington State Solar Panels Get Jobs
Cardinal Glass Industries, with plants in Winlock and Chehalis, will hire an additional 50 workers after winning a multimillion dollar contract to manufacture glass for solar panels.
The deal will boost Cardinal's local employment to 300.
Typically, the company makes glass panes for residential windows. Under a five-year deal with a Malaysian company, Cardinal Glass will make tempered glass backing on solar panels, which will be laid across a field and used to convert solar radiation into electricity.
Mark Reidy, manager of the Chehalis plant, would not disclose the name of the company in Malaysia or the value of the deal, but he said Cardinal agreed to send the company 4.7 million pieces of glass.
Next year, Reidy said he expects the number of glass plates sent overseas to double.
Cardinal Glass Industries also sells solar panel glass to a company in California and is working out a deal with a panel manufacturer in Washington.
"These companies are popping up all over the place," Reidy said. "There was a time when solar energy was cost-prohibitive."
He said the plant expanded its operation to 24 hours a day, seven days a week to get the job done.
Rep. Brian Baird, who urges consumers to buy energy-efficient appliances with their economic stimulus rebate checks, toured the Chehalis plant Friday morning.
He examined glass moving across conveyer belts, in an out of ovens, and wrapped up in packaging. He called the project a "win-win" because it creates more jobs and helps the environment.
Despite political rhetoric that says otherwise, "There's plenty of evidence that renewable energy actually creates jobs," Baird said.
This month, Gov. Chris Gregoire passed a bill that sets targets for reducing the state's emission of "greenhouse" gases such as carbon dioxide, which are believed to contribute to climate change. The law also sets a goal to create more "green-collar" jobs, or jobs like those opening up at Cardinal Glass.
Cardinal was founded in 1962 in Minneapolis and has plants in many U.S. states, including Wisconsin, Texas and Utah.
The Winlock plant is expected to cut the glass slabs for the solar panels and ship them to the Chehalis plant for tempering and additional cutting. The Winlock plant employs several hundred workers alone.
Each glass pane measures two-feet-by-four-feet and has a small hole cut in it. Defective pieces of glass are melted back down and reused, Reidy said.
Bill Lotto of the Lewis County's Economic Development Council said the project is also exciting for all of Southwest Washington. The region is building a strong energy industry. Two power plants powered by natural gas have started up in the lower Columbia Region over the last year, and other energy projects include controversial proposals for a liquefied natural gas terminal in Clatsop County and a petcoke plant at Kalama.
"That's a real strength here," Lotto said.
Baird called the Chehalis operation "pretty neat.
"Somebody's going to make 4 million solar panels," and that's going to boost the use of clean energy, he said. |
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