The company made the announcement from the US China Green Tech Summit, taking place Monday and Tuesday in Beijing. The new factory is sure to get out-sized mainstream media attention as the world tracks US President Barack Obama’s first visit to China. He is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Monday evening for a series of events and meetings with Chinese President Hu Jinatao.

Suntech says the plant will initially be capable of turning out 30 megawatts of modules annually and employ 75 full-time employees, a figure that could grow depending on the development of the US market.

Suntech chief executive Zhengrong Shi had wanted his company to be the first Chinese manufacturer the sector to export jobs to the US and it looks as though that will be the case.

“Bringing manufacturing jobs to the U.S. is part of Suntech’s vision to grow the solar market in every corner of the world,” he says in a statement. “We are eagerly watching growing markets and see the potential of bringing manufacturing capabilities to other markets where we see the combination of rapid local market growth and manufacturing cost competitiveness.”

The plant, which Suntech plans to open in the third quarter of 2010, appears scaled back from ambitions articulated earlier this year. Suntech America president Roger Efird said at an event in June that the company intended to build a 100-megawatt capacity factory, which would have employed about 300 people. In its statement, the company does indicate the possibility that the plant will eventually expand.

The factory announcement, anticipated for much of 2009, comes as close scrutiny is being paid in the US to competition with China for clean-energy manufacturing jobs. At least one powerful lawmaker spoke out against US incentives potentially going to a joint-venture between Chinese wind turbine manufacturer A-Power Energy Generation Systems and US investors and project developers to develop a 240-turbine wind farm in Texas.

Efird, speaking during a panel discussion at the Edison Electric Institute 2009 Annual Convention, said the high costs to ship heavy solar panels and the “buy America movement” were key drivers of Suntech’s plan to open a factory in the US. In this economic climate, the “politically correct” thing for solar buyers, such as city council members, to do is buy American, he added.

Suntech had narrowed its choice to Texas and Arizona. California, Oregon and New York were also in the running at one time.

In an interview late last month, Suntech marketing vice president Wei-Tai Kwok told Recharge the company was “really doing the math on each location with all the variables around trying to suss out which place is ideal from a labour and tax benefits [perspective] and even which states are more likely to have solar incentives in their market and have more solar demand in their market.”

In its announcement, Suntech praises research being done at Arizona State University; Arizona renewable energy policies – specifically a 15% by 2025 renewable energy mandate and set-aside for distributed generation; and, a ‘supportive local business climate’.