TOLEDO, OHIO, CENTER OF SUN

Toledo reinvents itself as a solar-power innovator
Judy Keen, June 15, 2010 (USA Today)

"This city is trying to swap its Rust Belt image for a new identity as a hub of solar-energy research and production…led by an unusual partnership of business, academia and government that could be a model for other aging industrial cities…

"…Toledo has struggled with the loss of jobs and tax revenue, but it has taken pieces of its past as the glass capital to create a new future in solar energy…6,000 people work in the area's solar industry…There are more than a dozen solar-related start-up companies…The University of Toledo is home to top solar researchers and has a business incubator…Owens Community College, which had 13 students in its first solar class in 2004, has trained 255 solar installers…Toledo's solar commitment [is comparable] to that of New Mexico and California…[W]hen Toledo's per-capita income, in the nation's top 10 in the 1970s, sank to the bottom 10 by 2000…[leaders decided] the only way to revive the area's economy as manufacturing jobs in the glass and auto parts industries disappeared was to bring its major institutions together to think boldly and share responsibility…"

Ohio, like all of the Midwest, has better sun than world-leaders Germany and Spain. (click to enlarge)

"…[F]ounded in 1833 on the western edge of Lake Erie, Toledo became a crossroads for railroads and a center for factories that made furniture, carriages and glass. Owens Corning, Libbey Glass and other glass companies originated here, giving Toledo its nickname: Glass City…Glasstech Solar [was founded] in 1984, [and became] Solar Cells, which explored with University of Toledo scientists ways to produce solar energy with thin, lightweight and flexible film. The raw materials used in thin-film solar products are cheaper and more versatile than those made from silicon. In 1999, [the] company was sold and became First Solar…

"…The university has a School of Solar and Advanced Renewable Energy, a Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization, and a team of nationally renowned researchers…The Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority is spending millions of dollars to double in size, improve railroad access and buy two mobile cargo cranes to make it easier for solar manufacturers to ship their products…"

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"…The Regional Growth Partnership has a venture fund that has helped spawn 68 companies, about a third of them in solar and other alternative-energy fields…Owens Community College tailors its solar programs to meet the specific needs of new companies and retraining workers who once worked in other industries. Students range in age [between 18 and 50 or older]…

"For some people here, advancing solar technology isn't just a job — it's a moral imperative…[There is] urgency to Toledo's bid to redefine how industries mature by combining forces to shove solar to the forefront…[and transform itself from Glass City to Solar City]..."