Gov. Jerry Brown was in San Mateo County Monday to mark the relocation of the country's largest solar energy company to Belmont.
The relocation of SunEdison, formerly based in Maryland, is projected to bring around 300 new jobs to Silicon Valley over the next five years, according to the company's president Carlos Domenech.
The company's move was facilitated by the passage of Assembly Bill X1 15, a bill benefiting solar companies that was authored by Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-South San Francisco, and signed into law by the governor in June.
The bill ensures similar tax benefits for solar companies who lease property as for those who own, according to the governor's office.
SunEdison has leased a formerly vacant property for its headquarters at 600 Clipper Drive.
"I'm thrilled that the collaborative efforts of state government and the city of Belmont resulted in SunEdison's relocation, which will create hundreds of local jobs," Hill said in a statement.
Brown said the company's relocation is part of his administration's goal to aggressively make California a world leader in the solar power industry.
"Not only are we going to make it the national leader, which it already is, but we're going to make it a world leader," Brown said.
The governor said that Fremont-based Solyndra, a federally funded solar company that declared bankruptcy over the summer, was a victim of the "capitalist process" and should not be taken as a symbol of the solar industry as a whole.
