By Ryan Randazzo | The Arizona Republic
It’s expected that solar energy would thrive in a state where the sun shines. A lot.
Those potent rays, abundant open spaces yearning for new jobs, and an emphasis on sustainability have been powerful catalysts for the industry here.
Why wouldn’t Arizona be the solar capital of the world? Gov. Jan Brewer has suggested as much many times.
Massive new generating plants have been proposed and built in sun-parched swaths of the state. Plans were laid for major factories to assemble solar components. Elected officials praised the potential of the burgeoning industry.
Plants are online and humming, and solar is topping more roofs every day.
But the state today remains far from the solar job market many had expected it to become.
Some of the solar-panel manufacturers that leaders were counting on to produce jobs stumbled as the industry was rocked by international competition, subsidy cuts, a global recession and the typical growing pains of a startup industry.
First Solar, for example, built but never opened a Mesa factory as demand dwindled. Suntech Power Holdings Ltd. of China opened and then closed a Goodyear factory.
