Tokyo solar company plans Oregon manufacturing plant

A Japanese company plans to open a solar crucible manufacturing plant in Fairview.

The director of the Oregon Business Development Department, Tim McCabe, and officials from Ferrotec, a manufacturer of single crystal silicon growing systems and quartz crucibles, announced the plan at the the third annual Tokyo PV Exposition in Japan. McCabe is in Japan with other Oregon officials touting the state's clean-tech industries.

The Ferrotec Portland area plant will open in mid-2010 and will produce quartz crucibles to support the company's growing West Coast solar business. Ferrotec estimates the Oregon plant will employ 30 after the start-up phase. Ferrotec is designing the plant to provide rapid response to the growing Oregon and West Coast solar industry.

Quartz crucibles are important components of the ingot manufacturing process and Oregon has more than 425 MW of crystalline solar manufacturing capacity currently in production with additional capacity scheduled for the near future.

Ferrotec officials said Oregon beat out competing states to land the manufacturing facility.

“After investigating a number of potential locations for establishing a facility in the United States, we selected Oregon for its combination of business opportunities, support structure and incentives necessary to make our investment a success,” Akira Yamamura, president of Ferrotec Corp., said in a statement. “We look forward to working with Oregon in the coming months as we become part of their expanding solar manufacturing community and make this new facility a reality.”