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Tech firms eye solar manufacturing, smart grid development

By Libby Clark
Published: February 28, 2010, 12:00am

Southwest Washington is in transition from a natural resources and electronics-based manufacturing center to a region focused on clean energy technology production, information technology and telecommunications.

Clark County has lost 1,400 manufacturing jobs — with 500 of those in computer and electronic product manufacturing — over the past year, according to the Washington Employment Security Department. State and local economists expect manufacturing jobs to stabilize here while industries linked to renewable clean energy and advanced technologies grow.

In the clean tech arena, solar manufacturing and smart grid development in particular hold the greatest potential for growth, with several large local companies already dabbling in the technologies.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which operates the WaferTech semiconductor foundry in Camas, plans to expand its business into the solar industry. And SEH America, a subsidiary of Japan’s Shin-Etsu Handotai Group, has already begun making solar silicon wafers at its east Vancouver facility and is likely to use its newly acquired Hewlett-Packard campus to further expand its silicon wafer production into the solar energy industry and other emerging technologies.

Sharp and Underwriters Laboratories in Camas have already invested in new smart grid products and services.

Bringing the nation’s aging electrical grid into the information age will require overlaying the existing grid with a digital communications system that includes sensors, controls and wireless devices.

Every device that enables the smart grid will need a computer chip or microprocessor to build communication links from power plants to transmission lines, all the way into homes and businesses.

With some 340 high-tech companies here, the region has the expertise to take advantage of the emerging smart grid market.

Increasingly, engineering, design work and telecommunications are also vital sources of the region’s technology-related jobs. Swiss-owned Logitech, Web-hosting and design firm Dotster and New Edge Networks, an EarthLink subsidiary, all have operations in Vancouver.

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