Well, so much for all those jobs that were supposed to be created by the new First Solar plant in my neighborhood.
Despite the protests of the homeowners who would have to look at and put up with the traffic created by the new First Solar plant at Signal Butte and Elliot, the City of Mesa touted all the jobs that would be created by First Solar. Now we learn that First Solar will “delay” the opening of the plant until at least 2013 (probably a lot longer) or until the economy for solar panels improves (probably never). Until then, the neighbors are stuck with this eyesore which will most likely never produce any jobs!
Bob Burger
Mesa
sockratties posted at 9:51 am on Sun, Mar 4, 2012.
So Bob,
Did you order any solar panels for your house? I didn't either. I went on line and entered all the data and found that even with the lease option I would break even after 15 years and 1st Solar would still own the panels.
It's still not clear how to get rid of them if you sell your house but any expenses are up to you. Insurance may not pay you if your house burns down because they belong to someone else, but you're still on the hook for the lease. 1st Solar gets all the SRP, Mesa or APS incentive monies and tax incentives are lower than before.
I think 1st Solar is up against the same kind of problems many "green" power companies are. There's a lot of commercial and political talk but little real action.
chatmandu002 posted at 11:40 am on Sun, Mar 4, 2012.
Did First Solar get some of it's money from the government? Hope this is not another Solyndra debacle. Seems like we keep spending money to develop a technology, then China steals it or we give it them and they produces it cheaper and sell it back to us.
Dale Whiting posted at 2:52 pm on Sun, Mar 4, 2012.
Bob,
Why ask this question when you already had the answer?
VofReason posted at 1:10 pm on Mon, Mar 5, 2012.
They probably are waiting for the Obama Administration to come up with the proper incentives to do business. You know businesses cannot operate effectively without Government handouts and direction- right?
Daddyburger posted at 8:32 pm on Wed, Mar 7, 2012.
I just heard about a great idea! Let's encourage the City of Mesa to pursuade First Solar to sell their new fabrication plant to the company that makes Kool-Aid. That way, the City can be known as "The Kool-Aid Capital of the Southwest"!