Boise ID Home Sales >> Micron Solar alliance could help
Boise ID Home Sales could benefit from a recent announcement from Boise based Micron Technology that it has formed a partnership with Australian company Origin Energy. Origin generates and retails energy to about 3 million customers.
Origin Energy produces commercial solar panels using a new silicon water called "silver" technology at a facility in Austrailia. The company announced in January of this year it has been testing the manufacturing of these unique chemically etched silicon cells at Micron in Boise Idaho according to sources close to the company. Australia National University experts say the payback for investing in solar power could drop from 20 years to to 5 once the technology is perfected and in production.
"It was clear that combining our semiconductor manufacturing expertise with Origin Energy's solar experience could result in a powerful partnership," Micron Chairman and CEO Steve Appleton and Chief Operating Officer Mark Durcan said in a memo.
A year ago Micron announced its interest in converting idle buildings in Boise and Nampa to manufacture solar panels and high-efficiency lighting components known as LEDs. A few months later, it began developing LED manufacturing facilities with $5 million in state and federal stimulus dollars.
"One of the keys to solar is a lot of the customers are big customers," said Mike Howard, a senior analyst with iSuppli and former Micron employee. Origin makes the technology and could, ostensibly, use it in its power generation. Even while Micron's involvement in solar and LEDs is far behind its memory operations, Howard expects both of them to grow.
"Micron isn't just getting into this to keep people busy," Howard said. "They want this to be a significant revenue generator." Hundreds of millions of dollars Micron invested in its now-obsolete silicon memory plants in Boise offer it a chance to develop state of the art manufacturing on both solar and LED technology, he said.
Micron Technology announced that a profit in December of 2009 of $200 million is due to an impoved market for computer chips. Micron once employed more than 11,000 people in the Treasure Valley and was Idaho's largest private employer. Today it has about 5,000 employees. The improved computer chip market and the new partnership with Origin Energy could be what the Boise Real Estate and Treasure Valley real estate markets need. A the unemployment levels in the valley could see significant reversals if Micron and Hewelett-Packards renewed profits prove to be consistent for the months to come.