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Flabeg Brings Solar Mirror Manufacturing Facility to Pittsburgh
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- “Any German associate that we bring here really feels at home here,” Meyer said.
- (© Flabeg Solar US Corporation)
Flabeg Solar US is bringing 200 jobs to the Pittsburgh region with its new facility for manufacturing solar thermal mirrors that are used in solar power installations around the world. The company has long dominated the market as the number one manufacturer of solar thermal mirrors for concentrating solar power (CSP); in fact, Flabeg produced the mirrors that are still in use in the first commercial solar power plants built in California in the 1980s.
With space at its factory in Furth im Wald, Bavaria, maxed out, the company was in the market for a new location, said Flabeg Solar US President Jochen Meyer. “The decision was to build it in the United States because we see the local market really booming.”
Pittsburgh won out as the location of choice for a number of reasons, not least of which is the strides the region has already made in turning around its image from a region dominated by the steel and coal industries to a home for renewable energy ventures and other innovative companies. “The local government is very interested in Flabeg as it really is in the focus of what they are trying to do—attract green energy and green technology,” Meyer said. “It’s a good combination.” Flabeg’s new facility is located in the airport-adjacent Clinton Commerce Park, an economic development project of Alleghany County.
Another reason for the good fit is Pittsburgh’s skilled and motivated work force, Meyer said, especially as Pittsburgh has been a center of the glass manufacturing industry for hundreds of years, much like Furth im Wald. The proximity of several world-class universities also played a role. And then there is the city itself. “It’s a very attractive region; there’s tons of stuff to do, it’s beautiful and very affordable,” Meyer said.
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- Meyer notes that solar thermal is still the most economical way to produce renewable energy.
- (© Flabeg Solar US Corporation)
Those are some of the same factors that have attracted other German companies to the region. “It is good to know that there are other German companies here, and we are starting to network more intensively with those; There are a lot of common interests and issues,” Meyer said. One of the best places for the German community to network is the newly opened Hofbrauhaus, an exact replica of the original in Munich. “We call it the German Embassy,” Meyer said with a chuckle. “It is truly German. At the beer garden especially you feel like you are back in Bavaria.”
With the company’s plan to bring associates from the German facility to Pittsburgh on temporary assignments to carry out the knowledge transfer, Meyer said they won’t have much trouble enticing them to make the move. Meyer said. “Any German associate that we bring here really feels at home here.”
