In what may amount to his boldest move to date in support of the clean energy economy as part of the economic recovery, President Obama announced that he would be “awarding nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments from the Recovery Act to two solar companies.” Abound Solar (mentioned here in a post last year) and Abengoa Solar plan to build a total of three solar panel manufacturing plants. Abound plans to build one in its home state of Colorado and one in Indiana, while Abegnoa will construct “one of the largest solar plants in the world in Arizona.”  The White House reports that “this plant will be the first large-scale solar plant in the U.S. to actually store the energy it generates for later use.” The president’s move represents a strong signal in support of clean energy.

According to the White House’s press release, the Arizona project is expected to “create about 1,600 construction jobs with over 70 percent of the construction components and products manufactured here in the USA.” This plant will generate enough power to supply roughly 70,000 homes with electricity. Abound Solar plans to build “two new plants, one in Colorado and one in Indiana. These projects will create more than 2,000 construction jobs, and over 1,500 permanent jobs as the plants produce millions of state of the art solar panels each year.”

Many of the stimulus jobs have been in road construction, but this funding will create short term construction jobs, long term manufacturing positions, and reduce dependence on nonrenewable energy supplies. With the opening of the nation’s first college dedicated to clean energy jobs, the future appears bright for the solar panel manufacturing industry in the United States. To hear the president’s announcement, click here (mp3). The video is below:

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