Solar power projects could employ thousands

Oct 28 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Leslie Berkman The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, Calif.

A week ago, Timothy Miller got the call from his union he had long awaited. The 42- year-old unemployed laborer from Needles grabbed the chance to work on a giant plant that will turn sunshine into electricity in the San Bernardino County desert.

Miller is one of thousands of construction workers suffering from Inland Southern California's housing crash and subsequent economic malaise who hope to find economic salvation in the solar energy industry's desert emergence.

On Wednesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar attended a groundbreaking by BrightSource Energy Inc., developer of the 392-megawatt Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System. The 3,500-acre construction site just west of the Nevada border in the Mojave Desert is where Miller and hundreds of other trade people will be working for several years.

If all nine large-scale solar projects approved or under government review in Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial and Kern counties are built, in about two years they could employ more than 8,000 construction workers, according to the California Energy Commission. And after construction is finished, more than 1,000 workers will be needed to operate them.

"The first of many expected utility-scale solar projects to break ground, Ivanpah is having a transformative effect on the High Desert region's work force and economy," said Bob Balganorth, president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California.

During the ceremony, BrightSource Energy also announced that a power generation company, NRG Energy, will have the largest ownership stake in the project by making an investment of up to $300 million.

PURCHASERS SET

Power generated at Ivanpah, consisting of three plants that will be completed in stages by 2013, will be purchased by Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison.

In recent months, a rush of solar projects have received approvals from the U.S. Department of Interior and the California Energy Commission. The timing reflects a need to get solar projects shovel-ready by year's end so they can qualify for U.S. Treasury tax credits that are part of a federal economic stimulus program.

Earlier this week, a 1,000-megawatt plant that Solar Millennium LLC plans for 7,025 acres near Blythe became the largest solar energy project approved for construction on public lands.

For construction workers, who are facing a 35 percent unemployment rate, such news lifts hopes and prompts calls to the union locals.

This year only a small number of union workers will be hired at the Solar Millennium project in Blythe and the BrightSource project in Ivanpah. They will build access roads and do other work preliminary to plant construction, which won't begin until next year, according to labor and management spokesmen.

IN THE THOUSANDS

Bechtel Corp., Brightsource's general contractor, estimates that the union work force needed on its multiphase project will peak at about 1,200 union employees late next summer. Solar Millennium spokesman Bill Keegan said about 1,100 construction workers will be needed to build each of the four 250-megawatt plants that are part of that project.

Bill Perez, executive secretary of the Riverside and San Bernardino Counties Building and Construction Trades Council, said the Solar Millennium project is expected to attract many workers from the Coachella Valley, and the BrightSource project will draw workers from the High Desert.

Full throttle construction on all nine projects that have been proposed "would make all the local referral halls out here very healthy," said Perez. "We never had one industry come into these two counties (Riverside and San Bernardino) and have a turnaround such as this."

Because the projects will be financed in part through government programs, the workers will receive union level wages of up to $55 an hour, depending on the craft, Perez said.

WAITING FOR WORK

Miller, who hadn't held a steady construction job for 18 months before joining the first crew at BrightSource's Ivanpah plant, said a year ago he took a class in solar energy offered by his San Bernardino local. Then he said he watched impatiently as the Ivanpah project was delayed by environmental hurdles. His first job is to build fences to protect desert tortoises from harm.

Miller, who is living in a trailer park near his new job, said his wish is for the solar plant to provide "steady work for three years for a lot of people." For the previous 10 years he spent much of his time building prisons, and he said it is a refreshing change to be developing renewable energy.

Union officials say some of the first positions filled this year at the Solar Millennium project will be office staff, supervisors, safety engineers and inspectors.

Solar projects are more than a temporary fix, said industry experts.

"This is huge. We are looking at a decade of construction," said David Olsen, managing director of the Western Grid Group, which is promoting transmission for renewable energy projects. He noted that behind the first wave of solar projects is yet another wave of projects in earlier stages of development that are also proposed for the desert.

Construction union leaders say the demand for workers could outstrip supply, so they are planning to work with county work force development centers and community colleges to arrange job fairs and other outreach programs to attract the unemployed from other fields and expand their apprenticeship programs.

"We have been waiting for about two years to open the apprenticeship programs for more applicants," Perez said. "Once we see a large backload of jobs, the apprenticeship programs can enroll more people for training."

Richard Sierra, business manager for Laborers International Union of North America Local 783 in San Bernardino, said the Ivanpah plant has employed 22 of his members in preconstruction work. But he said he expects up to 150 laborers will be hired, which he said would deplete his waiting list.

MAY NEED MORE

"If we run out of people, we will reach out to other locals and to community groups," Sierra said.

Robert Frost, business manager for Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local 440 in Riverside, said the first priority will be to employ Inland residents and military veterans.

"This year has been pretty dismal for all construction workers," Frost said, adding that about half the calls his office receives are about the solar projects. "They are asking when the jobs are going to start."