Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday announced clean energy company Nexamp will build its second headquarters in Chicago and invest an additional $2 billion in existing and new projects in Illinois.
Nexamp came to Illinois on its own, despite the Democratic governor’s public and private efforts to lure new businesses to the state.
Nevertheless, Pritzker told the Sun-Times he credits as an incentive for the move the passage of the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act in 2021, which set a timeline for phasing out fossil-fuel energy sources and pledged job creation in clean energy industries.
“When we passed the new law, it incentivized community solar and other kinds of solar and now we have thousands of solar applications to the state, to the IPA [Illinois Power Agency], to build out new solar in the state,” Pritzker said. “So it is happening. And it’s happening on its own because we incentivized it. It’s creating new electricity sources, production, new electric production in the state of Illinois without any new [tax] incentives necessary.”
Founded in 2007 by two U.S. Army veterans, the company specializes in solar and energy storage and is the largest community solar provider in the country. The company’s addition will ultimately create more than 3,000 jobs in Illinois and potentially offset the power needs of more than 50,000 households, Pritzker said a news conference.
“We are one of the nation’s fastest growing solar and green technology markets, all while attracting like-minded companies who share our ambitious clean energy goals,” Pritzker said at the event.
The Boston company’s addition to Chicago marks the latest clean energy company to come to Illinois. Gotion, a Chinese electric vehicle battery manufacturer in September announced plans for a $2 billion lithium battery plant in Manteno on the site of a former Kmart distribution center, a factory that should create 2,600 jobs.
Manner Polymers, which manufactures compounds for use in electric vehicles and components for solar panels, in June announced it would build a manufacturing facility in Mount Vernon on southern Illinois. And Prysmian Group last year also announced it would break ground on expanding its Du Quoin facility in southern Illinois. The company plans to increase cable manufacturing for renewable energy and electric vehicles.
Illinois is picking up steam in acquiring clean energy companies, but progress — in terms of jobs and less reliance on fossil fuels — has been incremental. The 2021 clean energy law set a deadline of shutting down fossil-fuel energy sources by 2050, with a quicker deadline for communities most affected by pollution. The Future Energy Jobs Act, or FEJA, was signed in 2016 by former Gov. Bruce Rauner and set a deadline to reach 25% renewable energy by 2025.
But the Sun-Times in September reported that renewable sources in Illinois make up only 10.5% of power, including current and planned projects. Renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, are required to account for a quarter of all power by 2025.
Pritzker disputed that number to the Sun-Times on Monday, saying the state has gone from 7.5% to “approaching 15%.”
“Think about the speed that we’ve moved from 2021 to two and a half years later...I’m not suggesting that we’re going to get where we need to be in 2025, meaning according to FEJA’s [2016’s the Future Energy Jobs Act] goal, but I am suggesting that we’re going at a pretty rapid pace,” Pritzker said. “So the idea that somehow it’s going slowly misses the fact that, you know, I inherited something that hadn’t moved since that goal had started.”
Pritzker said the state’s goal is to get to 48% renewable energy and 52% nuclear energy by 2050.
Part of the law also included new “equitable” jobs in clean energy industries and training programs, another field where the state is lagging. But Pritzker on Monday said Nexamp’s agreement with the state also includes a fellowship program with the City Colleges of Chicago to create an employment pipeline for students interested in the solar industry.
The governor too defended the pace of clean energy jobs, saying, “we’re moving in the right pace.”
“I will say that I know there are people who would like this to move quicker. Some of them are people who run programs that get paid to train people to do this kind of work,” Pritzker said. “So there’s a little bit of self interest in them saying it’s going too slowly.”
As for additional business development in the clean energy sector, the governor, without disclosing names, said the state has a “really strong pipeline” of new solar projects and companies that are manufacturing solar-related products.
“Illinois has become one of the most attractive places in the nation to build out solar, which feeds exactly into what we were intending to do with CEJA,” the governor said.
