SolarWorld CEO Frank Asbeck is already a celebrity of sorts in Europe and is quickly making a name for himself in America.
SolarWorld CEO Frank Asbeck is already a celebrity of sorts in Europe, and is quickly making a name for himself in America.
Asbeck visited SolarWorld’s American headquarters in Hillsboro last week and called the United States “God’s country” for solar power.
He speaks his mind publicly, unlike buttoned-down German execs stationed in Portland. Take his pet peeve, the challenge of competing with heavily subsidized Chinese manufacturers. “How can you produce anything in the U.S.,” he asks, “as long as Chinese are paid like donkeys?”
Yet Asbeck’s company is manufacturing full-tilt in Oregon, having invested more than $500 million in an empty Komatsu silicon-wafer factory it acquired in 2007. He predicts America will leapfrog Spain and Japan within 15 months to become the world’s second-biggest solar market behind Germany.
Read more at OregonLive.com.
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