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The company first to build facilities in the Sandia Science and Technology Park is moving its headquarters from New Jersey to its 150,000 square-foot Albuquerque campus.

"With Albuquerque now representing the largest single manufacturing site Emcore has . . . this made a natural choice," said David Danzilio, vice president of photovoltaics with Emcore Photovoltaics. "Albuquerque is a very good place to be doing business."

Emcore - a publicly traded company that supplies solar-power technology for satellites - will also add 20,000 square feet to the space and boost employment by more than 100 to fill new jobs over the next 18 months.

"One of the factors that really is driving the business is access to a skilled labor force," Danzilio said. "It's a broad pool of skilled people at various levels that fit well within the organization."

He said the new jobs' salaries will range from $30,000 to more than $100,000.

The $2.5 million expansion will allow the company to produce solar panels used on satellites and - new to Emcore - power systems of a size reserved for utility-scale operations.

Danzilio said Emcore's technology allows photovoltaics that operate at about 37 percent efficiency, as opposed to the 12 to 14 percent rate of consumer-grade solar technology. And though it costs 50 to 100 times more to build, it costs less on a per-watt basis, he said.

"Right now, this technology has not yet been accepted by the marketplace," Danzilio said. "We're trying to change that."

He said Emcore is bidding on a couple of renewable energy projects, and one utility in southern Colorado was interested in the technology. He noted that New Mexico was slow to adopt it.

Jackie Kerby Moore, executive director of the Sandia Science and Technology Park, the high-tech business and research hub neighboring Sandia National Laboratories, said the company's expansion and headquarters relocation bode well for the park's goal of creating a tightknit technology community.

"Emcore is one of the companies that does business with many other companies in the park," she said. "To the extent that they continue to expand, grow and hire new people, they'll continue to partner (with other companies)."

She said Emcore's employment rolls will eventually hit more than 500 as a result of the changes.

"They're a publicly traded company, so they (the headquarters) could be anywhere," she said. Choosing Albuquerque "speaks highly of our community."