May 21 - Buffalo News

The combined benefits of silicon, sunshine and hydropower are expected to bring 500 new "green" jobs to Niagara Falls over the next three years.

The Globe Metallurgical plant, idle since 2003, will reopen as a producer of silicon products for the solar power industry under an agreement with the State Power Authority that was announced Tuesday.

"This project will be a cornerstone for New York State to become a major center for production and research for renewable energy, and in particular solar energy products," said Alan Kestenbaum, chairman and chief executive of Globe Specialty Metals.

Globe will invest $60 million to retool the existing metallurgical-grade silicon plant on Highland Avenue to produce the premium-grade silicon product. The facility is expected to be in full production by 2011, turning out at least 4,000 tons of solar- grade silicon per year.

The high-tech manufacturing facility, whose jobs will pay an average annual salary of $52,000, could be operating on a limited basis by the end of the year.

The current worldwide output of this type of silicon is 60,000 tons per year, putting the Niagara Falls plant in a position to make an immediate impact.

"We will get noticed. We will be a significant producer on the world stage," Kestenbaum said.

The reopening is aided in large part by a 40-megawatt allocation of low-cost power from the Power Authority approved Tuesday.

With power costs accounting for more than 30 percent of the energy-intense manufacturing, cheap power was essential to the deal, according to Kestenbaum.

Globe also will get a boost from more than $25 million in state Empire Development Zone benefits tied to job creation.

"This project signifies how powerfully competitive New York State can be in attracting businesses when we pool our resources, in this case the availability of hydropower through [the Power Authority] and an Empire Zone incentive through Empire State Development," Gov. David A. Paterson said in a statement.

In an unusual economic development twist, the Empire State Development Corp. also will partner with Globe to market 25 percent of the high-grade silicon to solar product companies and other end- users located in New York.

"[Empire State Development Corp.] will have access to one of the most precious commodities in the world, and we will offer it to emerging industries at a 15 percent discount," said Daniel C. Gundersen, Empire State's upstate chief.

"The 500 jobs Globe will create are just the beginning as we position New York to be a global hub for the solar energy industry and other manufacturers who rely on premium silicon," he added.

The plant's potential to fuel the fledgling but fast-growing solar products market is not lost on Tom Thompson, chairman of the New York Solar Industries Association. Thompson, who is also an executive with Atlantis Energy Systems, a Poughkeepsie photovoltaic building products maker, said he would prefer to "buy local."

"We source from Germany and Taiwan because there are really no PV cell makers in the U.S. now," Thompson said. "If they can turn out a product that's competitive in the global market, we'd have no reason to go outside New York. It would an extremely attractive option for this industry."

The soon-to-be resurrected Niagara Falls plant site has a manufacturing history dating to the 1890s.

Originally a Carborundum Co. facility, it was formerly the largest metal alloy plant in the United States, employing more than 400 workers during its peak in the 1940s and 1950s.

More recently it was home to SKW Alloys, and it became Globe Metallurgical in the mid-1990s. That worldwide silicon metals and foundry alloys company had around 200 workers at one time, but production reductions led to a series of work force cuts, and the plant closed in 2003.

Kestenbaum's metal industries investment group, Globe Specialty Metals, acquired the similarly named Globe Metallurgical company in 2006.

Globe will invest $20 million to bring the plant's two existing furnaces back to life. They will be used to produce metallurgical- grade silicon. It will spend another $40 million or more to construct and outfit a new, 100,000-square-foot facility to refine that product to solar-grade silicon.

While the employee roster will include approximately eight research and design staff members and 10 administrative employees, the vast majority of the new hires will be plant workers, Kestenbaum said.

"We will educate and train most of these people for an industry with a 30 to 40 percent annual growth rate. This is the right time to be doing this and the right time for prospective employees to be coming in," Kestenbaum said.

Niagara Falls Mayor Paul A. Dyster and Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport, applauded the outcome.

e-mail: slinstedt@buffnews.com

Originally published by NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER.

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