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Solar Power Inc., a Roseville, Calif.-based solar panel manufacturer and installer, won $24.7 million in stimulus funding to build a new manufacturing facility in Sacramento County. The award comes through the county’s Recovery Zone Facility Bonds, which in turn come from Recovery Act funds doled out to California and distributed among counties and cities throughout the state. Currently, Solar Power builds its panels in China and installs them here in the U.S.

The plant will top 10 megawatts of production and create 60 permanent jobs when it opens, which Solar Power says will come by the end of the year. That employee roster will increase to 100 in the future, said Executive Vice President Jeff Pontius to the Sacramento Business Journal. In addition, roughly 100 temporary jobs will be created during the construction process.

Solar Power is currently seeking out potential sites in Sacramento County for the manufacturing facility, which will also house the company’s new headquarters, and expects to announce said location within 30 days. Solar Power also plans to erect a $50-million, 10-megawatt utility-scale solar photovoltaic system in the county. That site has already been chosen but the company has not revealed its location. Solar Power Inc. employs 63 people at its current Roseville headquarters.

Sacramento County’s allotment of Recovery Zone funding, of which Solar Power Inc. received the full amount, was culled from a total $15 billion that the Obama administration allocated nationwide. Solar Power’s new plant is the latest in a slowly increasing number of manufacturing facilities being built in the States as part of federal incentives aimed at bringing permanent, high-quality green jobs to the U.S.

Photo Credit: world construction equipment

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