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Michigan to Invest $250 Million in Suniva Manufacturing Facility

Michigan Governor Jennifer M. Granholm recently announced that the state will invest $250 million in Georgia-based Suniva Inc.'s new solar manufacturing facility in Saginaw County's Thomas Township. Suniva expects the project to create 500 new jobs over the next five years subject to receiving a Department of Energy loan guarantee, which the company recently applied for.

Suniva manufactures and markets high-efficiency, low-cost photovoltaic cells and markets high power-density modules in its current 100 MW facility in Georgia. Suniva's investors include NEA, Warburg Pincus, and Goldman Sachs.

The state also announced that the Michigan Economic Growth Authority (MEGA) has approved a photovoltaic Michigan Business Tax (MBT) credit valued at $15 million over five years. Michigan's photovoltaic MBT credit provides a refundable tax credit for the construction and operation of a facility that develops and manufactures photovoltaic technology, photovoltaic systems or photovoltaic energy.

In other MEGA action, the board also approved incentives to move forward the Wixom transformation project announced last month. Clairvoyant Energy Solar Panel Manufacturing Inc. was granted a photovoltaic MBT credit valued at $25 million over two years, and Xtreme Power Inc. received an advanced-battery credit valued at $100 million over four years.

Clairvoyant Energy and Xtreme Power plan investments of $857 million (over four phases) and $475 million, respectively, to redevelop the 320-acre plant site and its 4.7 million square feet of building space to manufacture solar power (Clairvoyant Energy) and energy-storage systems (Xtreme Power). The redevelopment work at the Wixom site is expected to begin early next year with manufacturing at the site slated to begin in late 2011. The redevelopment plan is expected to create more than 4,000 direct jobs, including 750 direct jobs by Clairvoyant, 2,500 direct jobs by Xtreme Power, and those created by local suppliers as well as thousands of indirect jobs.

According to the state, in August, 12 Michigan projects were awarded more than $1.35 billion from the U.S. Department of Energy to expand their advanced-battery manufacturing capabilities in the state.