According to the US-based, Solar Energy Industries Association, solar energy has experienced an average annual growth rate of 50% over the past decade. Jinko Solar, a Chinese company founded just 13 years ago in 2006, has emerged as the largest manufacturer of solar energy panels in the world. Jinko employs 13,500 people and has eight factories around the globe that produced an estimated 30 million panels in 2018. But what they didn’t have was a US manufacturing presence.

That all changed in the past year with Jinko’s decision to build a $50 million manufacturing facility in Jacksonville, Florida. For today’s story we interview Jinko Solar’s Jeff Juger, the JAXUSA Partnership’s Aaron Bowman and Florida Power & Light’s Crystal Stiles. The episode includes tales of a rain-drenched economic developer, a flat tire while traveling with the company and a Sunday morning site inspection arranged at the last minute.