BP will close its solar-panel manufacturing plant in Frederick, the final step in moving its solar business out of the United States to facilities in China, India and other countries.
Just 3 1/2 years ago, in an announcement widely hailed by Maryland officials and promoters of "green jobs," BP unveiled a $70 million plan to double output at the facility and erected a building to house the production lines.
But on Friday the company said it would lay off 320 workers and keep only a hundred people involved in research, sales and project development. BP said laid-off employees would receive full pay and benefits for three months, followed by severance packages and job-placement assistance. The company, unable to sell or lease the building, will tear it down.
"We remain absolutely committed to solar," BP chief executive Tony Hayward said in an interview Friday. But he said BP was "moving to where we can manufacture cheaply."
The company said in a news release that by closing down high-cost manufacturing locations, BP slashed unit costs by more than 45 percent.
A few years ago, under the leadership of then-chief executive John Browne, BP said that its initials should stand for "beyond petroleum" and that the solar business was a key part of that new image even though it remained a tiny part of the oil and gas giant. Hayward, who came up through the oil-and-gas-exploration side of the company, said BP remains committed to renewable energy where it makes economic sense.
"The bit about 'beyond petroleum' being dead and buried is nonsense," he said. But, he added, "it's a business as opposed to an advertising slogan." He said that "we believe there are real business opportunities" and that BP would "be pursuing them in a far more business-like way than we did when everyone thought we were 'beyond petroleum.' "
if ( show_doubleclick_ad && ( adTemplate & INLINE_ARTICLE_AD ) == INLINE_ARTICLE_AD && inlineAdGraf )
{
placeAd('ARTICLE',commercialNode,20,'inline=y;',true) ;
}
function ebStdBanner0_DoFSCommand(command,args){try{command = command.replace(/FSCommand:/ig,"");if((command.toLowerCase()=="ebinteraction") (command.toLowerCase()=="ebclickthrough"))gEbStdBanners[0].handleInteraction();}catch(e){}}function ebIsFlashExtInterfaceExist(){return true;}
try{ebStdBanner0_DoFSCommand(command,args);}catch(e){}
') ;
}
// -->
BP, which has been in the solar business for 37 years, acquired a half-interest in the Frederick plant when it bought Amoco Corp. in 1999; it bought the rest from Enron. At one point, BP was the world's second-largest solar company. Today, it ranks in the top 15, though it hopes to grow.
Intense competition and high silicon prices made the solar sector "a very challenging business," Hayward said. Reyad Fezzani, chief executive of BP Solar, said that the U.S. market, which grew 87 percent in 2008, was almost flat in 2009, with prices for solar modules tumbling about 50 percent.
BP also has made missteps. It was producing 125 millimeter multi-crystalline solar cells in Frederick while the rest of the industry had moved to 156 millimeter cells, which have become standard. Changing the production lines would be too expensive, Fezzani said.
Elsewhere in the United States, BP built and then closed two plants using technologies that the company said had showed early promise. "They were very experimental. And those factories weren't successful in making commercial products," Fezzani said.
Anticipating renewed growth in the U.S. market, other companies -- including Yingli Solar of China, Schott Solar of Germany and Kyocera Solar of Japan -- are planning to open facilities in the United States.
But BP plans to rely on a 25-year-old joint venture with Tata in Bangalore, India, and on an eight-year-old joint venture in Xian, China, with a Chinese firm called SunOasis. BP buys silicon from a variety of suppliers and uses contract factories in which it holds no interest. BP Solar said in January that Jabil Circuit would build a module assembly plant in Chihuahua, Mexico, to serve the U.S. market.
BP has applied to the Energy Department to help finance a proposed 32 megawatt solar-power generation plant on Long Island, N.Y., on land belonging to the Energy Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Sensitive to questions about whether U.S. tax dollars would be helping foreign manufacturers, Fezzani said that "70 percent of our jobs are outside the factory," in design, construction, installation and maintenance. He said BP recently certified 150 installers, "all small businesses."
In 2006, a worker interviewed while monitoring the furnaces used to melt silicon at the Federick plant said, "I could retire here." That won't happen now.
"A few years ago conditions were different," Fezzani said. "The margins were healthier. There was a shortage in the market. But since then, the market has changed. We just couldn't make the economics of this factory work."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032604611.html?wprss=rss_business
Top of blog:http://www.usaalternativeenergynow.blogspot.com/
Saturday, March 27, 2010
BP Solar ends Md. manufacturing, cutting 320 jobs
HAGERSTOWN, Md. – BP Solar said Friday it is closing its landmark Frederick manufacturing plant as part of a reshaping of the U.S. solar industry in a cost-cutting move that will eliminate 320 jobs.
The company, a San Francisco-based unit of London-based BP PLC, said the sharply falling price of solar-power modules prompted it to shift its remaining in-house production to lower-cost joint ventures in China and India and contract with other manufacturers for the rest.
About 110 jobs in sales, marketing, research and project development will remain in Frederick, housed for now in the prominent slant-roofed building along Interstate 270 about 40 miles from Washington, spokesman Pete Resler said.
The company said solar panel prices have fallen nearly 50 percent in the past 18 months. The price drop has driven the consumer cost of solar power closer to that of electricity generated from fossil fuels, said Chief Executive Officer Reyad Fezzani.
He said that with global demand for solar power expected to boom in coming years, "we are scaling up our supply chain to serve this rapid growth here in the US, in the European and Asian markets."
In 2009, BP Solar announced its global sales rose more than 26 percent. The company said it expects sales growth exceeding 50 percent in 2010.
BP Solar said it is increasingly focused on developing utility-sized projects. Fezzani said about 70 percent of solar industry jobs are in design, installation and maintenance. As a major project developer, BP Solar will help create hundreds of these new jobs, he said.
Still, the company's announcement was "a big hit" to Frederick's economy, said state Sen. David Brinkley, R-Frederick.
"They're obviously going to be making the solar cells somewhere, but they're choosing physically to relocate and not be here, and that's indicative of, I guess, the environment — the business environment and the economy," Brinkley said.
Solar-cell manufacturing in Frederick dates to the mid-1970s, when Hungarian expatriates Joseph Lindmayer and Peter Varadi established Solarex. The company, housed in the plant topped by a huge, slanted, solar-panel array, became the nation's largest U.S.-owned solar cell producer by 1994, when then-owner Amoco Corp. sold a 50 percent share to Enron Corp.
BP acquired Amoco in 1998 and bought Enron's share a year later.
___
Associated Press writer Brian Witte contributed to this story from Annapolis.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100326/ap_on_bi_ge/us_bp_solar_layoffs_2
The company, a San Francisco-based unit of London-based BP PLC, said the sharply falling price of solar-power modules prompted it to shift its remaining in-house production to lower-cost joint ventures in China and India and contract with other manufacturers for the rest.
About 110 jobs in sales, marketing, research and project development will remain in Frederick, housed for now in the prominent slant-roofed building along Interstate 270 about 40 miles from Washington, spokesman Pete Resler said.
The company said solar panel prices have fallen nearly 50 percent in the past 18 months. The price drop has driven the consumer cost of solar power closer to that of electricity generated from fossil fuels, said Chief Executive Officer Reyad Fezzani.
He said that with global demand for solar power expected to boom in coming years, "we are scaling up our supply chain to serve this rapid growth here in the US, in the European and Asian markets."
In 2009, BP Solar announced its global sales rose more than 26 percent. The company said it expects sales growth exceeding 50 percent in 2010.
BP Solar said it is increasingly focused on developing utility-sized projects. Fezzani said about 70 percent of solar industry jobs are in design, installation and maintenance. As a major project developer, BP Solar will help create hundreds of these new jobs, he said.
Still, the company's announcement was "a big hit" to Frederick's economy, said state Sen. David Brinkley, R-Frederick.
"They're obviously going to be making the solar cells somewhere, but they're choosing physically to relocate and not be here, and that's indicative of, I guess, the environment — the business environment and the economy," Brinkley said.
Solar-cell manufacturing in Frederick dates to the mid-1970s, when Hungarian expatriates Joseph Lindmayer and Peter Varadi established Solarex. The company, housed in the plant topped by a huge, slanted, solar-panel array, became the nation's largest U.S.-owned solar cell producer by 1994, when then-owner Amoco Corp. sold a 50 percent share to Enron Corp.
BP acquired Amoco in 1998 and bought Enron's share a year later.
___
Associated Press writer Brian Witte contributed to this story from Annapolis.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100326/ap_on_bi_ge/us_bp_solar_layoffs_2
Solar Millenium
Solar Millenium
Link to: http://www.wallstreet-online.de/diskussion/1073576-5171-5180/solar-millenium-diskussionsforum
Link to top of blog: http://www.usaalternativeenergynow.blogspot.com/
Link to: http://www.wallstreet-online.de/diskussion/1073576-5171-5180/solar-millenium-diskussionsforum
Link to top of blog: http://www.usaalternativeenergynow.blogspot.com/
Space Pictures Without Using Rocket Fuel
Friday, March 26, 2010
We are looking for more song for playlist
We are looking for more song for playlist. The songs should be energy, earth, or environment related. Please send us suggestions. Thanks.
Link to top of blog: http://www.usaalternativeenergynow.blogspot.com/
Link to top of blog: http://www.usaalternativeenergynow.blogspot.com/
Department of Energy - Small Business
Department of Energy - Small Businesses Helping Drive Economy: Clean Energy, Clean Sites
http://www.energy.gov/recovery/documents/Small_Business_Memo_Mar2010.pdf
http://www.usaalternativeenergynow.blogspot.com/
http://www.energy.gov/recovery/documents/Small_Business_Memo_Mar2010.pdf
http://www.usaalternativeenergynow.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
