Brewer pleads for Solar Grade expansion support

Brewer: 'No justifiable reason' for PUD power rate increases

MOSES LAKE — On the heels of the news that Advanced Silicon Materials (ASiMI) is cutting jobs at its Moses Lake facility, Grant County Economic Development Council executive director Terry Brewer is hoping that the local community will show ASiMI venture Solar Grade Silicon that an expansion would be welcome.

ASiMI, recently acquired by Renewable Energy Corporation in Oslo, Norway, this week announced the layoff of approximately 40 employees in its Butte, Mont., and Moses Lake facilities. According to an ASiMI press release, the number is in addition to the elimination of temporary and contracted personnel in both facilities and the consolidation/reduction of the management staff in both plants.

According to the release, the Butte facility is laying off approximately 20 staff people in the technical and administrative ranks. Much of the work will be streamlined and consolidated with the remaining staff. The Moses Lake facility is laying off approximately 20 people total, in both the staff ranks as well as operators.

"The reason for the layoffs is twofold — the company simply has too many people for the challenges that lie ahead, and production cost is too close to the sales price to give a sufficient buffer when the polysilicon market again cycles downwards," CEO Goran Bye said in a statement. "Historically, the market for polysilicon has been cyclical, and we need to prepare already now for a future downturn."

Brewer said any layoff is negative and not something that people like to see happen.

"It's the way things go sometimes," he said, noting that there have been three or four company layoffs in the area in the past four or five years. "That's the reality of the world in which we live."

At the same time, ASiMI's joint venture with REC, Solar Grade Silicon, LLC, is considering an expansion estimated at $300 million to its Moses Lake facility, but is also looking at spending those expansion dollars in five other Northwest locations, including Butte.

"The merger, perhaps not totally unexpected by some, is too bad, but on the other hand, if we see the expansion here, then the net result is still a gain in jobs," Brewer said, adding that the 70 new jobs coming with the Solar Grade Silicon expansion may give people an opportunity for new jobs, although he doesn't know what kind of positions are being eliminated or created with the merger. "A gain of 50 jobs is awfully darn important."

Brewer called the expansion the most important thing going on at the GCEDC, and said it has been on the council's radar screen for at least a year and a half, watching as ASiMI worked on new technology. If the technology proved itself, it would lead to major expansion, Brewer said. As marketplace demands drove interest higher, it became clear the expansion was going to happen some place.

"There's been a bunch of people in our community saying we can't wait until it's announced, we have to do our best to have this expansion in our community," Brewer said. He noted that those people worked behind the scenes for a long time in order to be up in front as a candidate for potential sites when the expansion became public.

"The expansion is major scale, I don't know of another one being talked about that's anywhere close to that scale," he said, adding that one would have to go back to Boeing's 7E7 project to find a project of similar scale and expansion in the state of Washington.

While it might not possess the "glamour" of an aerospace project and didn't receive the same amount of attention from legislators, Brewer said, the expansion is receiving attention nonetheless, with the state legislature offering a business and operations tax cut to the solarware sector that will begin Oct. 1.

"The point is, the state's stepping up, doing what they can, and CTED (the Washington State Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development) and the governor are considering what more they can do to be competitive with Montana," Brewer said. "Locally, most people would think it's a good thing to have that expansion take place here, but I don't know how many people have told Solar Grade Silicon that."

Brewer added that he is not certain that Solar Grade Silicon believes they are wanted in Moses Lake, nor was he certain how many phone calls or letters from business leaders or community members have been received by the company.

"If we're not doing that, we're missing a page of our agenda," Brewer said, estimating that the additional investment would bring $4,200,000 in new taxes to the area. "We should, as a community, sit down and say how important (the expansion) is to our community, and be doing everything within our power to keep them here. We're not showing those colors."

Pointing at the explanation that power increases in Montana have led to the ASiMI job cuts, Brewer said he doesn't believe it's in the best interest of the community to lose the expansion, and ultimately run the risk of more lay-offs because the Moses Lake plant is ASiMI's oldest plant and has the oldest technology.

"If in fact it comes to a point when that corporation needs to do a layoff, I think the oldest plant will go first," Brewer said. "If we get the new technology here, it gives our plant longevity."

Noting that Grant County PUD is looking at an increase in its power rates, Brewer said. "I don't think we want to see power costs increasing to industry and us losing jobs here as a result of that. I would prefer to see industrial rates kept competitive and land the new jobs and new investments here. There's no justifiable reason based on costs of power and costs of delivering that power to industry to raise rates at this time."

Brewer said recent relicensing to the district means that the PUD has quit purchasing more expensive Bonneville Power Administration power, which presently supplies 56 percent of the large industrial customer load.

"We have the opportunity to replace that power with much lower cost Priest Rapids Project power after Nov. 1, and be serving those customers at a much lower cost," Brewer said.