The plant's construction closely follows the Tennessee Solar Symposium in Nashville, which took place earlier this week. At the symposium, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen exhorted economic development experts to "treat [solar] as serious."
"The way you develop anything is to find some anchors," Bredesen added.
Hemlock's new Clarksville plant will make polysilicon for solar panels. The plant should take three years to complete and will employ 500 when it is operational. Eight hundred construction jobs will be added by the plant's construction, the state estimates.
Tennessee economic officials hope that Hemlock's facility - and a similar polysilicon plant being built by Wacker Chemie in Cleveland - will spur further investment in the state by the solar industry. In a show of optimism, the road leading to the Hemlock plant was renamed Solar Way.
Rick Doornbos, CEO of Hemlock Semiconductor, noted Tennessee's solar initiatives and cited its "attractive business climate, access to lower cost energy and talented workforce" as reasons for Hemlock's investment in the state.
