California and San Diego leaders got behind a new solar facility in San Diego Friday.
Gov. Jerry Brown, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders and Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher were all present for the dedication of the manufacturing facility for French firm Soitec.
The firm specializes in concentrated photo voltaic technology. It recently helped to power the famous Champs-Elysées light festival in Paris. The festival consumed 65 percent less electricity than in years past.
SDG&E purchased power from the company to be distributed locally and to other Southwestern states through the Sunrise Powerlink.
Sanders, Brown and Fletcher heralded the opening as the result of collaboration between the public and private sector.
Officials say the facility represents a 150 million dollar investment which will create 450 jobs at the plant in Rancho Bernardo and 1000 indirect jobs around the world.
Gov. Brown arrived to San Diego for the dedication after attending a climate conference in San Francisco, where he took aim at skeptics of climate change, and emphasized actions to confront global warming.
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"The main thing we have to deal with in climate change is skepticism and denial, and the cult-like behavior of political lemmings that would take us over the cliff," Brown said at the conference Thursday.
