Solar Boom Kicks Salaries Higher
Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States August 15, 2008

Exclusive By Lee Bruno, Cleantech Group

Recruiters and analysts say the solar industry ramp up is raising the price tag for manufacturing executives. New salaries for some solar manufacturing executives have recently doubled, signaling both the arrival of the cleantech industry and big challenges ahead, according to cleantech recruiters and salary experts.

And that spells even bigger challenges for startups competing for talent resources.

Double digit annual growth is nothing new to the U.S. solar energy industry. But what is news is the cost of hiring experienced managers from a variety of different technology industries. Companies building the next solar behemoth will certainly have to pay the rising price tag for talent.

“The number of companies has more than doubled [over the last year], and competition is definitely stiffer,” said Jody Thelander, president and CEO of J. Thelander Consulting in Mill Valley, CA., which surveys and tracks compensation in startup companies for venture capital firms.

“The competition for talent in these mission critical positions is increasing and salaries are on the rise,” confirmed Ray Fortney, managing director of executive search at the Cleantech Group, parent company of this news service.

One early stage startup client seeking a VP of operations initially posted the position at $170 thousand dollars, only to find compensation from competitors offered from $200-$400 thousand dollars, according to Fortney.

What’s driving the rising cost of expert talent? For one, there’s the big push to bring several new large thin-film solar manufacturing plants online in the next few years.

Big contracts for solar power like PG&E’s 800 megawatt deal announced this week (see PG&E mega solar deal sparks industry) and the $15 billion Masdar Initiative’s ambitious plan for thin film solar to help power its zero-carbon city (see Masdar getting into thin film solar business).

“On solar we have four SunFab lines that are now producing panels,” said Mike Splinter, president and CEO of Applied Materials in an analyst briefing at Semicon West last month.

“Probably one of the areas that goes unnoticed is our crystalline silicon area. We're now shipping $200 million a quarter. We're expanding our capacity pretty much as fast as we can," Splinter said.

“We've got a good, deep talent span pool,” said Tom St. Dennis, senior vice president, general manager silicon systems group at Applied Materials in the same analyst briefing.

“We're restocking it, if you will, with good technologists, and it's created opportunities for our people,” he said. Applied said it is on track for solar operating margins 25 percent to 35 percent in the 2010 outlook.

Some of the startups in the hunt for this solar talent include Miasole, Nanosolar and Primestar Solar, among others. Among the heavyweights building out their solar production are Applied Materials, Ascent Solar, First Solar, Sharp and Q-Cells.

Solar isn't the only cleantech industry to experience this sort of inflation. Other sectors such as wind and biofuels are also expected to experience similar upward pressures on salaries as firms compete for the best talent, said Thelander of Thelander Consulting.

“The clean tech industry has become a respectable one with the average CEO total cash compensation increasing 9.2 percent from 2007 to 2008,” said Thelander.

Source: Cleantech Group