Minnesota lawmakers made headlines earlier this year when they approved a bundle of financial incentives to draw a timber product mill to the city of Cohasset in northern Minnesota.
But the Legislature, along with state and county officials, also threw down cash for another project aimed at economic development in northern Minnesota: The expansion of a plant in Mountain Iron — a city of 2,800 people between Virginia and Hibbing — that manufactures solar panels.
Part of an effort to diversify a regional economy reliant on natural resources like wood and iron ore, the plant — run by Ontario-based Heliene, Inc. — is expected to be the second-largest solar panel manufacturing plant in the country once the new project is done.
Martin Pochtaruk, Heliene’s president, said the company aims to help the U.S. meet new goals announced by President Joe Biden to produce half the nation’s electricity via solar energy by 2050. “Our product, made in Mountain Iron, Minnesota, is the simplest renewable energy engine to such electrification,” Pochtaruk said Thursday at the new facility’s groundbreaking ceremony.
Heliene leases an industrial park that Mountain Iron officials built in 2010 specifically to lure green energy projects. Craig Wainio, the city administrator, said the area’s economy has been dependent on mining and forestry and Mountain Iron officials saw renewable energy as an opportunity for future development.
The business park, across the street from an entrance to U.S. Steel’s enormous MinnTac taconite mine, was first occupied by another solar panel manufacturer: Silicon Energy. But that company closed up shop in 2017 and garnered controversy for its dismal output — despite receiving millions from the state of Minnesota and local governments.
Heliene moved in later that year to the building, which sits on Silicon Way, on the outskirts of a town with street names like Mineral Avenue, Granite Street and Agate Street. “From there it’s just taken off,” Wainio said.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Walker Orenstein[/image_credit][image_caption]Martin Pochtaruk, Heliene’s president, said the company aims to help the U.S. meet new goals announced by President Joe Biden to produce half the nation’s electricity via solar energy by 2050.[/image_caption]
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Walker Orenstein[/image_credit][image_caption]Martin Pochtaruk[/image_caption]
While Heliene is chipping in about $9.5 million for the new manufacturing line, state and local governments are also pouring in millions for the new building. The Legislature is contributing $5.5 million to Mountain Iron for the expansion, while the state’s Department of Employment and Economic Development and Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB) each provided a $2.75 million loan for the project. St. Louis County offered a $1 million grant.
Mark Phillips, commissioner of the IRRRB, said the “heavy lifting really was at the Legislature.” Supporters tried for two years to get money for the plant expansion at the Capitol. In 2020, the measure didn’t get a hearing in the Republican-led Senate, but in the closing days of the regular session, Chisholm Sen. David Tomassoni — who was a Democrat at the time — and Sen. Torrey Westrom, R-Elbow Lake, tried to add the grant money to a package of environmental legislation up for a vote on the Senate floor. (The amendment also included money for research of ammonia produced by renewable energy.)
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Walker Orenstein[/image_credit][image_caption]State Sen. David Tomassoni, right, hugging Heliene president Martin Pochtaruk during Thursday's ceremonies.[/image_caption]
In 2021, Tomassoni left the DFL to become an Independent and chaired a committee in collaboration with the Republican Senate. Still, the Senate didn’t originally include the Mountain Iron solar project money sponsored by Tomassoni in the energy budget eventually passed by the chamber. The money was added to the bill by Sen. David Senjem, R-Rochester, on the floor shortly before a vote. The Legislature later approved the cash as part of a broader deal on energy policy.
What changed?
“I said ‘I’m not going home without this,’” Tomassoni said. “Jobs on the Iron Range are something that people have always talked about — diversifying the economy. What better opportunity to have solar panel manufacturing, the only one in the upper Midwest and one of the largest in the country right here in the Iron Range.”
Lawmakers at the event also said Rep. Dave Lislegard, DFL-Aurora, championed money for the project in the Minnesota House, and the expansion eventually had a long and bipartisan list of supporters; the company released a set of friendly quotes from Walz, Minnesota’s two U.S. senators and 8th Congressional District Rep. Pete Stauber.
The $5.5 million from the Legislature came out of the state’s Renewable Development Account, which pays for clean energy projects with fees levied on Xcel Energy for storing nuclear waste in the state. State law says the money is supposed to benefit Xcel customers.
State Rep. Jamie Long, a Minneapolis DFLer who chairs the House’s Climate and Energy Finance and Policy Committee, said Mountain Iron isn’t in Xcel’s service territory. But he said many of the solar panels Heliene produces are sold in the Xcel territory, so there is a “broad benefit from the expansion.”
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Walker Orenstein[/image_credit][image_caption]State Rep. Jamie Long speaking during Thursday's groundbreaking ceremony.[/image_caption]
At the groundbreaking ceremony at the Heliene facility Thursday, Pochtaruk, the Heliene president, had a surprise. Holding back tears, he announced the new expansion project would be named after Tomassoni, who recently announced he has been diagnosed with ALS. After the two embraced, workers at the plant marched out a green and red banner reading: “Senator David J. Tomassoni Solar Manufacturing Facility.”
“Well it’s overwhelming because there’s any number of people that were here today they could have picked the name after,” Tomassoni said afterwards. “I’m just honored by it, and I appreciate the fact that people are recognizing the hard work we had to do to get this done.”
I guess job creation is the key up there, whatever the industry. Interesting that not only did this project got Republican support and subsidies from the Minnesota Senate, but the facility will be named after the recently party-switching Sen. Tomassoni. Most Republicans in Minnesota, and especially nationally during the Trump administration, were dead set against funds and subsidies for any kind of alternative energy. It really is the Democrats who should be thanked and honored for their advocacy for solar power. But, nice to see the expansion amidst the growing need and importance of non-fossil fuel sources of energy.
Yet another abuse of the “Renewable Development Account.” And Tomassoni’s name on it. Two sources of bad odor. Lets hope some increases in panel manufacturing actually result…
When people have to rely on government handouts like this, it really harms their self-esteem and just creates dependency.
Or so I’ve been told.
Whenever the government provides this type of funding/subsidy/stimulus, I think that the recipient’s books should be open to the public as well. I am not concerned about the number of staplers they buy or the coffee they serve, but I do want to know about the salaries and benefits that the management receives versus what the workers are paid. The money should be tracked and as taxpayers/investors, we should get to see how and where our investment is spent.
Any company accepting a socialist subsidy like this should be required to not interfere in any way, shape or form in the decision of employees to unionize. No threats, no retaliation, no captive audience meetings.
Have to say, when I read this article I felt thrilled for the people on the Iron Range who will benefit directly (with a new job) or indirectly (in regional economic benefits or through their relatives or friends getting jobs). Also felt good reading about a bi-partisan success story at the Legislature. And had to laugh (rather than cry) at the two comments from Alan and Frank. Clearly your glasses are not just half empty — are they cracked or broken? What about the Lands Grant Act that resulted in the building of the transcontinental railroads? The Homestead Act? The GI Bill? The creation of Social Security? The government promise to provide a free public education? Free public libraries? Our amazing state and federal park system? I’m sure at various times, someone who wasn’t universally beloved had their name attached to one or another of these program — and at some point there has likely been some failure personal or professional within each decision, each program and every new idea or proposal. But I don’t find them all malodorous as a result. And personally, I value my “government handout” of a free K-12 education. I’ve been an independent tax PAYER ever since. (And I’d be happy to contribute to a new glass fund for the pair of you) 😀
Linda, your “free k-12 education” was not free, it was payed for by the very tax payers that would like some accountability where their money goes. I am not a fan of Govt/private money partnerships. You can point to a few that have worked but there are many more that have failed and tax dollars wasted. For some reason people feel Federal money is free money, it is not! It is a piece of every hard working buck anyone makes doing their job going to politicians, to give away…
People have every right to question every penny spent by our elected officials. If you got to know some of our elected politicians better, you would question more, not less.
As far as the solar company in Mt. Iron, I hope it works out, I hope they pay back the loans (never happens), hire more people, make the best solar panels in America and success for all…… We shall see….
Permit me to be perfectly blunt.
Those voters who consider themselves to be small government conservatives, of which there is an increasing number of on the Iron Range in particular and rural MN in general, love to whine about the evils of (supposedly) increasing socialism. Paul Gazelka goes on conservative talk radio and slams his fellow Minesotans who live in the Metro, telling us we love us some gubmint handouts, while his rural kin just want to be left alone (while they try to deny us the right to raise our own minimum wages).
But then those same hardy rural folks, who boast about being self-reliant and not needing gubmint, why they have no problem when the gravy train rolls through red counties.
We are one state, and we will rise or fall together. It’s not urban progressives like me who are constantly fomenting a politics of division. We don’t mind our taxes paving rural roads and building new water treatment plants for rural counties that have been emptying out for a century now. But we will forever allow rural politicians to slam us up one side and down the other while telling us the myth that rural taxpayers get a raw deal, when it is in fact the other way around.
You want to stop socialism? Start sending the checks back!
“Senator David J. Tomassoni Solar Manufacturing Facility.”
Clean energy and jobs for the older industries workers.
Perfect.
I don’t mind the government helping to get this expansion done. The Company has already been in operation for 4 years so the startup risk is gone.
I do object to the government putting in more money into this project than the company
If one of the largest solar panel manufacturing facilities in the whole country expands its workforce by 60 people, how many other solar companies will it take to create the millions of jobs being promised?
overall, a positive economic growth story, sorely needed in the Range area of Minnesota.