The Buffalo News: RiverBend’s magic number of 2,900 jobs counts
on local
supply base serving factory
Published:
Thursday, September 25, 2014 - 15:15
The Buffalo News
With its $750 million commitment to build and equip a massive solar panel factory in South Buffalo for SolarCity, the state is making a big bet, not only on the solar energy systems installer, but on its suppliers, as well.
Under the deal SolarCity struck with the state to build one of the world’s biggest solar panel factories in the RiverBend complex, the California-based company promised to create 1,460 jobs at the 1.2 million-square-foot factory.
Nearly as many jobs – 1,440 in all – would come from companies that work with SolarCity and would set up operations in the Buffalo Niagara region to supply the RiverBend factory and perform other support services there.
As a result, the deal creates a structure that makes it essential that SolarCity build its own supplier and contractor base in Buffalo Niagara – something that state officials view as an essential step in creating the kind of critical mass needed to create a solar energy hub here that includes all of the expertise and resources needed by the solar energy industry.
Having its suppliers and service providers nearby also should help SolarCity meet its aggressive goals to reduce the cost of its solar energy systems by reducing transportation costs and shipping times for its suppliers.
SolarCity’s strategy is to reduce the cost of its solar energy systems by making panels that are more efficient than most solar modules in use today in a factory that will be more cost-effective to operate because it will produce those panels at such high volume.
“To be successful, they need those suppliers to be near them,” said Alain E. Kaloyeros, CEO at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany and one of the key players behind Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s economic-development push in Buffalo Niagara.
