General Electric Co. is set to announce plans to build one of the world's largest thin-film solar panel plant in Aurora creating an estimated 350 jobs, according to sources.
The $300 million plant will be located in a 200,000-square-foot former L'Oreal Worldwide warehouse in the Majestic Commercenter northeast of I-70 and Tower Road. PrimeStar Solar, owned by GE, plans to begin retrofitting the warehouse next month and to double its size within the next two years, a source familiar with the deal said.
An announcement by Gov. John Hickenlooper is planned for tomorrow, the source said. GE officials declined to comment.
When GE announced in April plans to build the plant — using technology developed by Colorado start-up PrimeStar — it set-off a pitched battle among 10 states.
At the end it came down to Colorado and New York State, which made a very generous bid, according to Colorado development officials.
One source said this morning that the plant will go to Aurora and the city will provide about $20 million in incentives with the state providing roughly $2 million.
Last April, just after GE announced plans for the new factory, Colorado's Congressional delegation, Hickenlooper and university leaders wrote a letter to GE highlighting the state's commitment to renewable energy.
"As state and federal collaboration can facilitate innovative economic opportunities such as GE's proposal, we stand ready to provide any additional help to attract this facility to Colorado," the letter said.
Arvada-based PrimeStar was created in 2006 by Ken Zweibel, who worked at National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden for 25 years, Ken Beach, a Colorado School of Mines physics professor, and Fred Seymour, former director of technology for Newmont Mining.
The company started with about $6 million in seed capital from individual investors and a global investment bank.
In February 2007, PrimeStar and NREL signed a $780,000 cooperative agreement to move thin-film technology developed at NREL to commercial production.
Four months later the company received a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help with development.
In September 2007, GE took an undisclosed minority share in PrimeStar and eight months later turned that into a majority share.
Last April, GE announced that it would buy the rest of the company and planned to build a new solar panel factory touching off a competition among 10 states for the plant.
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