Saint-Gobain Solar has announced that construction work on its mirror line for solar thermal power stations has begun. The new plant is located in Goodyear, Arizona, USA and will be Saint-Gobain Solar’s first manufacturing facility in North America.

The facility will primarily supply the domestic market and is expected to eventually produce millions of square feet of solar mirrors for thermal power station technologies.

The new solar mirror line is planned to come on stream in the last quarter of 2011 and will produce 50 new jobs for the area. This investment complements Saint-Gobain’s current solar mirror production base, which includes a parabolic mirror plant in Portugal and a flat mirror facility in Germany.

“The new manufacturing facility in Goodyear highlights Saint-Gobain’s commitment to innovation in renewable energies and solar technology in North America and around the world,” says John Crowe, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Saint-Gobain Corporation.

The plant’s production capacity is estimated at an annual thermal power output of 300 megawatts (MW), as well as an annual saving of up to 320,000 tons of CO2.