On July 18, 2012, Hubble Smith writes in the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the Amonix solar manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, subsidized by more than $20 million in federal tax credits and grants, has closed its 214,000-square-foot facility about a year after it opened.
A designer and manufacturer of concentrated photovoltaic solar power systems, Amonix received $6 million in federal tax credits for the North Las Vegas plant and a $15.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2007 for research and development.
At its peak, the plant had about 700 employees working three shifts a day to produce solar panels for a utility in Amarosa, Colorado.
The Amonix plant was highly touted by political leaders and economic development officials when it opened in May 2011. Company executives said they would employ as many as 300 assembly line workers paid $12 to $14 an hour, plus benefits.
Amonix was selected for a grant under the Bush administration’s Department of Energy in 2007 and eventually received a total of $15.6 million under the grant.
“The global solar industry is facing significant challenges that are impacting solar manufacturers worldwide,” Department of Energy press secretary Jen Stutsman said Wednesday from Washington. “Amonix, an innovative solar startup company with strong backing from Republicans as well as Democrats, received a tax credit to expand its American manufacturing operations and help ensure the United States continues to compete for the manufacturing jobs of the future. While today’s news is disappointing, the United States simply can’t afford to cede America’s role in the growing, highly competitive solar energy industry.”
The North Las Vegas plant was a joint venture with Singapore’s Flextronics Industrial. Amonix founder and chairman Vahan Garboushian had estimated capital investment of $15 million in the plant, including equipment, construction and tenant improvements.
Kenerly, the former Amonix manager, said many investors pulled back after CEO Brian Robertson’s death and the company was about $100 million in debt, including $34 million owed to Flextronics.
In July 2010, President Barack Obama talked up the Amonix plant during a Nevada visit to support Reid’s re-election, saying tax credits for the plant provided by federal economic stimulus efforts had already made an “extraordinary impact.”
“Now, the only problem we have is these credits were working so well, there aren’t enough tax credits to go around,” Obama said in a speech at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
“There are more worthy projects than there are tax credits. When we announced the program last year, it was such a success we received 500 applications requesting over $8 billion in tax credits, but we only had $2.3 billion to invest. In other words, we had almost four times as many worthy requests as we had tax credits.”
The plant’s closure quickly became a political football in Nevada’s U.S. Senate race.
“Congresswoman Berkley, when you voted for the trillion dollar stimulus, you promised it would create 34,000 jobs in Nevada,” wrote Chandler Smith, spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, the incumbent Republican Berkley is challenging. “Nevada lost jobs. Congresswoman Berkley, you pushed $6 million in funding to a company that has created zero long-term jobs for Nevada. It’s time for you to admit the stimulus – and your policies – aren’t working.”
Berkley’s communications director, Xochitl Hinojosa, responded: “Shame on Senator Dean Heller. While Shelley Berkley and Republican Governor Brian Sandoval are working to make Nevada the clean energy jobs capital of America, Senator Heller is cheering the fact that hundreds of Nevadans have just lost their jobs because he thinks it will help his political campaign. However, Heller’s rooting for failure should come as no surprise to Nevada’s middle class, given his track record protecting tax breaks for corporations that ship American jobs overseas and defending China’s unfair trade policies that are cheating Nevada workers out of thousands of good-paying jobs.”
Amonix isn’t the only solar company to go under after receiving an infusion of federal capital.
California-based Solyndra filed for bankruptcy last year after receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees from the Obama administration.
Colorado-based Abound Solar, which received a $70 million loan guaranteed by the Energy Department, filed for bankruptcy in June, succumbing to intense competition from China that has sharply driven down the cost of solar panels, chairman Thomas Tiller said in a Reuters news article.
