FREMONT — Giving a timely boost of stimulus to this city in the wake of the news that the giant NUMMI plant will close, and helping to cement the Bay Area as a center of the clean-tech industry, solar-panel maker Solyndra said Friday it would use a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government to build a factory here that will ultimately employ 2,000 people.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu came to Solyndra’s headquarters just off Interstate 880, joined by Vice President Joe Biden via satellite, for the announcement that the company will construct a $733 million solar-panel manufacturing plant that would add thousands of blue-collar jobs to the Bay Area’s workforce.

“In these tough times, what we need more than anything is jobs, jobs, jobs,” Schwarzenegger said.

Solyndra’s announcement, aside from burnishing the Bay Area’s reputation as a center for innovation in the clean-technology industry, also indicates that companies can not only design and market their products here, but also build them, creating so-called “green-collar” jobs that will help replace the thousands of blue-collar jobs lost in this region over the decades.

These newly created positions should help ease the blow of the loss of 4,700 jobs at the nearby New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant, which announced last month that it would shut next year.

The first part of the new solar-panel plant, being powered by the $535

million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, will employ 1,000 people. A second phase would employ 1,000 more, said Ben Bierman, Solyndra’s vice president of operations. Solyndra now employs 600.The Solyndra factory’s initial phase will create 3,000 construction jobs. The plant will also spin off hundreds of jobs installing solar panels.

“These jobs are going to be permanent jobs,” Biden said. “These are the jobs of the future. These are the green jobs. These are jobs that won’t be exported. These are the jobs that are going to define the 21st century.”

Solyndra’s deal is the first loan from a federal program that will ultimately offer $30 billion in guarantees to clean-tech companies, Biden said.

The plant would be Solyndra’s second factory and will rise near the company’s headquarters, and first plant, along Interstate 880. It should open by late 2010 and begin shipments in 2011.

“It is a much-needed boost for our local economy,” Fremont City Councilwoman Suzanne Lee Chan said. “To have this kind of good news a week (after the NUMMI announcement) is fantastic.”

Federal officials say the solar panels produced at the new factory will provide enough energy for 24,000 homes a year, as well as reduce carbon emissions.

“We will not only be able to contribute to the new innovation economy, but also help to ignite a new era of green industrialization,” said Chris Gronet, Solyndra’s chief executive officer and founder.

Yet Solyndra’s growth plans extend well beyond the plant launched Friday.

This new factory will be about 1 million square feet. Solyndra wants to build a third factory of 2 million square feet, and Bierman noted the NUMMI site may be a good fit.

“We would have to look at it carefully,” Bierman said, “but we wouldn’t know until we got in there.”

Schwarzenegger used the event to call on the state Legislature to approve Assembly Bill 1111. The proposal could make it easier for clean-tech firms to operate in California by exempting from sales taxes new manufacturing equipment for clean-tech companies.

“The key thing is not to lose those jobs,” the governor said in an interview with this paper Friday. “If workers are used to building cars, they can be retrained. If they are handy, if they have the knowledge, they can be retrained to build solar or some other green technologies.”

Solyndra comes to market with an innovative design, making cylindrical solar cells that resemble fluorescent bulbs. It uses a combination of elements — and not silicon — to create the semiconductor material used in its photovoltaic solar cells. And it targets a specific market — the flat roofs atop thousands of commercial buildings around the world.

“If you build a better solar panel, the world will beat a path to your door,” U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said. “Building a better solar panel is what Solyndra has done.”

Solyndra has raised about $820 million in venture capital, and has a backlog of $2 billion in contracted orders. The company came out of stealth mode in late 2008.

Mercury News staff writer Matt Nauman contributed to this story.

Green Jobs Training: Emerging Opportunities To Leverage Stimulus Dollars

A centerpiece of the stimulus package is an effort to put 3 and 4 million people back to work over the next two years.

The site Recovery.gov includes a map of the U.S. with the estimated jobs expected under the Recovery Act superimposed over each state. California leads with 396,000 anticipated jobs, while North Dakota and Vermont expect the least job growth with 8,000 each.

I’v been curious to better understand who is leading the charge on training the workforce for the wave of new green jobs we are expecting.  Are companies taking the lead?  Federal agencies or state governments?  It seems to be a bit of a chicken and egg scenario.  If you deploy training programs without partnering with business, you will have a trained workforce, but no jobs.  And if you create the jobs, but neglect workforce development, critical shortage of specialists in growing professions could occur.

According to the National Renewable Energy Lab, the major barriers to a more rapid adoption of renewable energy and energy efficiency in America are insufficient skills and training.

Sources of funding for green jobs training

According to Green for All one of the leading non profits working to promote green jobs and build the green economy, the Recovery Act invests nearly $4 billion in training and employment services and a good portion of that — $500 million — will go specifically to “research, labor exchange and job training projects to prepare workers for careers in energy efficiency and
renewable energy industries.”

Green for All reports that, “The challenge of finding qualified workers is particularly pronounced in the energy-efficiency and renewable-energy industries, as they are new fields requiring new skills. That is why the Recovery Act specifically targets these industries with the $500 million Energy Efficiency and Renewable Worker Training (EERWT) Program. The available funds can be used for research, labor exchange, and job training projects that get workers ready for entering “green collar” industries.”

Chapter 7 of the Green Guide to the 2009 Stimulus Package highlights a few of the green jobs training programs funded by the stimulus package:

• AmeriCorps State and National Recovery Act Assistance–$201 million:  Current AmeriCorps grantees are eligible for the additional funding. Among the jobs that AmeriCorps personnel may do are job training and counseling activities and constructing and rehabilitation of housing and other buildings.
• Department of Labor Employment and Family Services Job Corps Centers–$250 million: Up to 15% of these funds can be allocated to training programs for careers in renewable energy, energy efficiency and environmental protection.
• Housing and Urban Development Tribal Governments–$40 million: This money is set aside to train tribal members in skills associated with the building trades such as pipefitting and plumbing, as well as training in environmental protection and renewable energy.
• Workforce Investment Act (WIA)–$3.95 billion: Of the $3.95 billion, $2.95 billion is provided for formula grants to the States for training and employment services with no specific “green” requirements. Of the remaining $1 billion, $750 million has been set aside for a program of competitive grants for worker training and placement in high growth and emerging industry sectors such as green jobs and health care.

California and Massachusetts take the lead

Massachusetts just awarded $1 million new green job training grants to develop vocational programs in the cleantech sector through the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. The grant winners will work with at least two clean energy companies each in developing curriculum and instruction materials. While specific to each institution, programs will train high school, college, low-income individuals, workers in the trade industries and clean energy employers to perform tasks in energy efficiency retrofitting, solar photovoltaic and heating system installation, wind energy, green building and clean energy policy fields.

California’s Green Corps is investing at least $10 million in federal economic stimulus funding from the U.S. Department of Labor and an additional $10 million from public-private partnerships to develop a 20-month pilot program reaching at least 1,000 of California’s at-risk young adults. All programs will be public-private partnerships that include green job training, a stipend, an educational requirement and community service.

Green for All’s New Capital Access Program

Green For All’s new Capital Access Program (CAP) focuses on creating, sustaining and scaling green jobs in the U.S, with an emphasis on building the capacity of green businesses and non-profits. Their new report, A Business Guide to the Recovery, is a resource to help businesses identify opportunities to leverage Recovery Act investments to bring the green economy to scale.

They will be hosting a webinar on September 9, 2009 at 4pm EDT to highlight emerging opportunities to leverage stimulus dollars and to offer examples of best practices from across the country.

According to the new report, “ARRA doesn’t direct any funds specifically to federal apprenticeship programs. Still, states are trying to find ways to create economic incentives for employers to provide more on-the-job training.”

I agree with the take home message from the new Green for All report–business must take a leadership role and partner with non profits to pursue innovative strategies to lift America out of this recession.

Perhaps clean tech investors should encourage start-ups to integrate workforce development partnerships into their business plans, so when businesses are ready to rapidly scale up, skilled workers are ready to go.

***

Deborah Fleischer, founder and president of Green Impact, a strategic environmental consulting practice that helps companies identify key environmental issues, strengthen their relationships with stakeholders, develop profitable green initiatives and communicate their successes and challenges.

Since majoring in environmental studies in 1983, Deborah’s career has focused on environmental issues in both the public and private sectors. She is an expert in sustainability strategy, stakeholder engagement, program development and written communications.