Renewable energy firm to occupy 50,000sf at Sonoma Mountain Village
[caption id="attachment_16525" align="alignright" width="234" caption="DC Power Systems will leave its long-time Healdsburg location and move into this building in January"][/caption]
HEALDSBURG – DC Power Systems, the distributor of renewable energy products that was acquired in April by Japanese giant Itochu Corp., will move its operation to Sonoma Mountain Village in January.
"We've outgrown Healdsburg," said DC Power director of marketing Chris Phipps. "At 85 employees and growing, we can't find the kind of space we need here."
After looking at business parks from the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport down to Petaluma, the company settled on Rohnert Park, leasing 20,000 square feet of office space and a 30,000 square foot warehouse at the former Agilent Technologies campus.
The company is already occupying the warehouse space. Upgrades are being made to the office building at 1500 Valley House Drive.
DC Power is one of the largest distributors of solar, wind and hydro equipment in the Americas, selling to about 3,000 contractors in Canada, the U.S., Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Itochu acquired DC Power's local competitor Solar Depot in 2007 and moved it into newly purchased headquarters in Petaluma.
It has similar plans for DC Power, said Mr. Phipps.
Along with DC Power, Itochu acquired its sister company Stellar Energy, which takes on installations that are too large for DC Power's contractor customers to tackle. In January, Stellar completed the largest solar installation in the U.S. wine industry, a 2.8 megawatt system for Foster's Beringer Winery in Napa.
The two business units have cut back about 15 positions since June due to the economy, but hiring has begun again, said Mr. Phipps.
Itochu is a 150-year-old global trading company with 500 subsidiaries and affiliates worldwide in a broad range of industries: technology, telecommunications, energy, aerospace, electronics, media, textiles, food products and finance. It employs about 56,000 workers and had revenues of over $30 billion in 2008.
For the last few years Itochu has been pursuing a global solar energy strategy, acquiring key distributors and solutions providers.
DC Power will be an especially good fit for Sonoma Mountain Village, with its emphasis on green building and sustainable industry and its 1 megawatt solar system.
"They're very much the kind of company we want," said Codding Enterprises President and CEO Brad Baker.
"We're very embracing of clean energy, and they're the widest distributor of green technology equipment in the U.S."
Sonoma Mountain Village is a housing and commercial community being developed by Codding Enterprises on the former 200-acre Agilent campus in Rohnert Park.
