I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Rio Rancho city officials were buoyed Wednesday by the news that a startup green energy company could bring 1,500 new jobs by 2014. Meanwhile, 45 miles to the south, the city of Belen was feeling the disappointment of unfulfilled promise after hearing that a company that had proposed an $800 million solar plant isn’t coming after all.
Belen’s loss was a grim reminder to New Mexicans that a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted until a proposed high-profile, economic development project is actually employing people.
In December 2008 New Mexico officials announced that an $800 million solar plant would anchor a proposed multi-use development in north Belen. Last week Signet Solar, the California solar manufacturer, decided not to build the solar plant, throwing into question the first phase of the large development.
“You always feel bad when a company tells you it’s going to come in and they don’t,”said Belen Mayor Rudy Jaramillo, who blamed circumstances beyond Signet Solar’s control for its withdrawal. “It’s devastation to the community.”
High-profile announcements involving green energy companies locating or re-locating to New Mexico have come fast and furious over the past two years, from a proposed $1 billion investment in a Santa Rosa solar project to a solar thermal tower in Santa Teresa.
The latest came Wednesday when the startup, Green2V, proposed a combined campus of corporate headquarters, research and development hub and a 1 million-square-foot manufacturing plant. The company’s campus will sit on a 124-acre, state-owned parcel near Rio Rancho’s new high school that the city will purchase from the New Mexico State Land Office for nearly $6.9 million provided by Green2V.
Green2V’s vision for a thriving campus provoked beaming faces and near-giddiness among Rio Rancho and New Mexico officials Wednesday.
“Ladies and gentlemen thank you for joining us today in Rio Rancho as we mark another historic day in the city’s very young history,” Rio Rancho Mayor Tom Swisstack told a standing-room-only crowd at City Hall.
“We will be the Solar Valley, like Silicon Valley is in California,” said Gov. Bill Richardson, who also was in attendance Wednesday.
Rio Rancho plant could pay technicians $40,000, more for engineers
Once up and running, Green2V plans on a $64 million annual payroll at its Rio Rancho campus, which will be staffed by hundreds of technicians earning in the $40,000 range and engineers who will be paid “substantially above that,” the company’s CEO Bill Sheppard said.
In the future Green2V’s workforce could grow to 3,000 if the company opens assembly plants in other New Mexico communities as planned.
On the surface Green2V appears poised to avoid some of the challenges that befell Signet Solar, especially the financial realities of a global solar production market that bedeviled Signet Solar.
Jim Wood, an official with Coast Range Investments, told Belen city officials this week that Signet had trouble competing in a global solar-panel market because some companies in China could sell similar products for about 20 percent less, according to the Valencia County News-Bulletin.
Unlike many companies these days, Sheppard said, Green2V is positioned to reduce costs of producing photovoltaic solar panels. It not only would build the solar panels but also sell them and help finance the installations – solar arrays – that use them to produce electricity, he added.
Sheppard likened the model to the cost-efficient assembly method Henry Ford used to build automobiles at the turn of the 20th century.
“The biggest constraint to renewable energy proliferation today is … electricity generated either through wind or solar is more expensive than conventional electricity,” Sheppard said.
Meanwhile, financing — which was a stumbling block for Signet — appears in place for Green2V.
Rio Rancho could give Green2V $500 million IRB
The Rio Rancho City Council will vote next week to approve a $500 million industrial bond inducement to help the company finance construction, which could occur as early as this summer.
Green2V’s financial partner, Los Angeles-based GP3 Ltd., has agreed to purchase the first round of city-issued industrial revenue bonds, according to the city.
“We’re fortunate in that our partners have the ability to bring that financing. We’re very confident in our business model,” Sheppard said.
When asked about investors, Sheppard said, “We have an investor, private equity, very large.”
Signet Solar, on the other hand, backed out of the Belen project after losing out on a federal loan guarantee. A loan guarantee means that a government has committed to covering a company’s private debt obligation if the firm defaulted. Loan guarantees are often important to helping companies secure private investment.
In addition to the city’s help with the industrial revenue bonds, Green2V also is eligible for millions of dollars in state tax credits and incentives. In addition to being eligible for up to $9 million in training funds, the company would qualify for the state’s high-wage and manufacturing investment tax credits, the governor said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Rio Rancho has asked Richardson for state money to pay for a proposed road to the Green2V campus, a request the governor is pondering. Richardson said he was thinking about using federal stimulus dollars to help pay for the road.
“I haven’t made a decision because stimulus funds … right now are kind of short,” Richardson said.
Add that to waived office and manufacturing space impact fees by Rio Rancho, and other inducements, and Green2V is receiving a lot of state and local tax breaks.
Signet Solar also was lured, in part, to New Mexico because of enticing incentives. The state promised that company, up to $30 million in credits, incentives and money for brick-and-mortar construction.
The vast majority of that, however, would have bee paid out after the California firm had started hiring and training employees, which never occurred.
