Massachusetts Loser in Green Recovery Act Awards

Courtesy of ChangeDotGov

Obama and his team announced the recipients of the $2.4 billion Recovery Act Awards for Auto Battery and Electric Drive projects.  Unfortunately Massachusetts did not gain much in terms of jobs from the awards that were received by A123 based out of Watertown and National Fire Protection out of Quincy Mass.  The big killer in the news delivered today is that Boston Power which was planning to build a state of the art battery manufacturing plant in Auburn was not on the list.

It leaves open the question of whether they will be able to move forward with the new plant which was to provide about 600 jobs.  As of this moment they have not commented on how this changes their plans.

According to the Boston Herald even though A123 is building their plant in Michigan some of the money they are receiving could be used for research and development that could generate between 100 to 300 jobs in Massachusetts.

The bulk of the money appears to be awarded for projects in Michigan and Indiana.  That includes the $249.1 million awarded to A123 Systems.

We look forward to updating this report with Boston Power’s updated plans for the factory.  Christina Lampe-Onnerud has proven herself to be innovative and resourceful.  Hopefully there will be a way to continue with the plant in Auburn…

Here is the information from the department of energy:

List of awarded companies

Awardee Map

Update: 8/6/09

Boston Business Journal confirms that plans for the Auburn plant have been put on hold for Boston Power.  The article does mention that they are looking at alternatives like getting grant money from the Department of Defense instead of the Department of Energy.  Those awards are supposed to be announced in October.  Hopefully that will be better news.  Ms. Lampe-Onnerud emphasized that Boston Power will continue to pursue the transportation segment for their lithium battery business.  The question is whether the manufacturing with happen in the US or not.