Mazo plant will produce solar electric components
From a story by Judy Newman in the Wisconsin State Journal:
Cardinal Glass will build a $60 million factory in western Dane County that could employ 120 people by the end of 2009.
The plant, to be built on a 26-acre site in Mazomanie’s industrial park, about 25 miles west of Madison, will manufacture two types of glass for use in solar photovoltaic panels.
“It’s new technology, it’s timely and it’s an eco-product. It’s perfect,” said Mazomanie village President Scott Stokes.
Groundbreaking for the first phase of the project will be June 9. A $30 million, 175,000-square-foot factory will be built and 40 to 45 employees will be hired to manufacture tempered glass panels.
Weeks after the start of that building, construction could begin on a $30 million, 75,000-square-foot expansion that will house the second part of the operation: glass panels with a special high-tech coating on one side, called a transparent conductive oxide coating.
It is the “integral part of the solar cell,” said Bob Bond, president of Cardinal Glass’ solar technology division. “It’s transparent because it has to allow the sunlight to come in, and once the electrons are activated and moving within the solar cell, the conductive part sweeps the current out of the cell and onto the electrical grid.”
