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North Andover solar installer Nexamp Inc. received the largest contract award for solar systems in Massachusetts Friday — a $20 million award to build 4.1 megawatts of solar capacity on a dozen state water treatment facilities.
The deal, announced at a ceremony at Nexamp’s logistics facility with Gov. Deval Patrick and Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles, is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and is an example, Patrick said, of how stimulus funds help local businesses.
“For anyone who is questioning whether the stimulus bill is creating jobs in Massachusetts, I say to them ‘Come on over to Nexamp,’” he said.
Nexamp president and founder Dan Leary said the contract will create 100 jobs over the next 18 months between his firm and Florence Electric in Taunton through a joint venture. Nexamp currently employs 45 people, up from a handful in 2006.
The projects on wastewater and drinking water treatment facilities will consist of ground-based solar arrays at each site. The sites include:
* Ashland Ponderosa Public Works Facility
* Barnstable Wastewater Treatment Facility (Hyannis)
* Chelmsford Crooked Spring Water Treatment Facility
* Easton Water Division
* Fairhaven Wastewater Plant
* Falmouth Crooked Pond Water Filtration Facility
* Massachusetts Water Resources Authority Carroll Water Treatment Plant (Marlborough)
* New Bedford Water Division Quittacas Water Plant (East Freetown)
* Pittsfield Wastewater Treatment Plant
* Townsend Water System
* Upper Blackstone Wastewater Pollution Abatement District Regional Wastewater Plant (Blackstone and Millbury)
* Worcester Water Filtration Plant (Holden)
Massachusetts received some $185 million in federal stimulus dollars through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for infrastructure projects at wastewater and drinking water facilities. The law mandates states to spend 20 percent of that funding on making those facilities more environmentally friendly, and this project will go toward meeting that requirement. Last month, state officials announced it will construct a wind turbine at a wastewater pump station in Charlestown.
Part of the stimulus bill requires companies to use American-made components, and Leary said Nexamp hopes to use whenever possible component parts made locally like panels from Evergreen Solar Inc. in Marlborough and inverters from Solectria Renewables in Lawrence.
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