Solar firm given warm reception
With Lane County unemployment at 14.2 percent, the new business is greeted with mostly open arms
By Sherri Buri McDonald – The Register-Guard – July 10, 2009
It’s not the leap that Portland and Salem took into the solar industry by landing major solar panel manufacturers. But a Chinese consortium’s plans to set up a hub here for solar panel sales in the United States could be Eugene’s first step into this emerging industry, said Desari Strader, executive director of the Oregon Solar Energy Industries Association.
“I know there’s another (solar) company kicking tires down there, as well,” she said.
Ocean Yuan is president of Centron Solar, a consortium of 30 Chinese solar businesses eager to gain a foothold in the potentially vast U.S. market.
Yuan told The Register-Guard on Wednesday that Centron Solar had leased a warehouse in west Eugene, assembled a management team of about 10 executives, and planned to hire up to 250 or 350 people in a year. About 200 to 300 of the positions would be “traditional white-collar jobs,” he said, and about 50 would be “green jobs,” assembling solar modules, or panels, for about $20 an hour, including benefits.
He said the consortium did not plan to set up major manufacturing or assembly operations in Eugene. Instead, the group plans to site assembly shops in multiple U.S. cities, closer to customers.
Centron Solar is moving quickly. It set up shop in Eugene two weeks ago, and on Thursday it launched its Web site, which listed seven open positions, including business development directors, technical support engineers and customer service representatives.
In the past year, Lane County has had a string of layoffs, including 1,000 jobs at the former Hynix computer-chip plant in west Eugene, and more than 2,000 jobs at local RV manufacturers.
“(Centron Solar) is certainly going to have a lot of people applying for those jobs,” said Brian Rooney, a labor economist with the state Employment Department.
Even if the consortium creates 200 to 300 jobs, however, it wouldn’t have much impact on the county’s unemployment rate, Rooney said. That rate stood at a seasonally adjusted 14.2 percent in May.
“But at this point any kind of job with decent pay, and especially benefits, will help those individuals” who are looking for work, he said.
The mere mention of hundreds of jobs had Raquel Tucker, assistant branch manager of Selectemp, a Springfield staffing service, attempting to contact Centron Solar on Thursday.
“We’re interested in helping them (with their hiring),” she said.
Chinese firms big on solar industry
Yuan, a ’93 business graduate from the University of Oregon, previously served as president of Solarfun Power USA and as global vice president of Smith & Associates, a semiconductor distribution company, according to Centron Solar’s Web site. Details on the other members of the consortium were not available on Thursday.
Chinese companies have made a big push into the solar panel market and now produce half of the world’s solar panels, Yuan said.
The Chinese manufacturers “have a very strong commitment,” said Jack Roberts, executive director of the Lane Metro Partnership, a local economic development agency. “They have a lot of resources … They’re making a very big play.”
Lane Metro Partnership helped Centron Solar secure the site they’re leasing in west Eugene, Roberts said. No incentives are involved, he said.
“In the hierarchy of solar, you have distribution, assembly and manufacturing,” Roberts said. “Manufacturing is obviously the holy grail,” as far as employment, pay scale, overall investment and the tax base, he said. “Whether these guys will be able to make a larger contribution in the distribution — if they get to 200 jobs it would be great — but we’re kind of working with them to see what happens.”
Other solar companies have expressed interest in Eugene, Roberts said.
“We’d like to get some companies involved in solar interested in working here, whether in distribution or assembly, with an eye eventually to the Hynix location for the manufacturing side,” he said. “That may not happen in one step.”
Hynix initially said it was looking at all possibilities for its shuttered plant: using it itself, using it in partnership with another company, or selling it to another company.
Now, Hynix’s goal is to sell the site, said Bobby Lee, the company’s Eugene spokesman. That could change, however, depending on the market, he said.
The burning question about Centron Solar is whether its direct sales approach will be successful.
The consortium plans to sell directly to solar panel installers, skipping the middle man, thereby lowering the cost.
“That model of selling direct makes some sense,” and it has worked for companies such as Amazon.com, Roberts said. “Fortunately, the way (Centron Solar) is doing it, it doesn’t look like there’s a large upfront investment to carry if things go bad.”
Local installers have mixed feelings
Local solar installers had mixed feelings about Centron Solar’s plans.
Steve Musser, renewables department manager at the Green Store in Eugene, said that Yuan dropped by the store a couple of weeks ago, and they established a good rapport.
Buying panels direct from the manufacturer could reduce prices by 30 percent to 40 percent, Musser said. That’s significant, he said, because the panels usually account for more than half the cost of the solar project.
Musser said he had mixed feelings about buying direct because he has relied on five or six distributors for years. However, he said, “I believe that bringing the cost down by going direct is very beneficial to society and would allow a lot more people to install solar, so I think that is the more important issue. We need to get the panels out there in the field making electricity as soon as possible and as much as possible.”
Musser added that if he does end up buying some panels direct, he’ll still support his distributors as much as possible.
Jim Wilcox, sales and marketing director at Solar Assist, another Eugene solar installer, said he hadn’t yet met anyone at Centron Solar.
He said he wants to learn more about the company and is excited about the possibility of more local solar industry jobs.
“We want to make sure the consumers are well protected by the company,” Wilcox said. “Solar panels generally have a 25-year warranty, so you want to make sure the company is reputable, and they can stand behind the 25-year warranty.
“We want to sit down and meet with them and discuss their products,” he said. “We’ll also do some querying within the industry itself, checking the background of the principals. One of the nice things about the solar industry is it’s a tight-knit group of people who are interested in protecting the integrity of the industry.”
