AUBURN - With the help of the federal stimulus program, Guardian Industries is aiming to build more high-quality solar mirrors in Auburn.

Last week, the federal government awarded Guardian $5.2 million in advanced energy project tax credits for the Auburn plant.

Guardian intends to double its capacity for solar mirrors to 1 million units per year in Auburn.

As part of the expansion, the company plans to install new equipment for adding reflective coating to the mirrors.

"That makes us a self-contained manufacturing unit for these mirrors" when the project is complete, said Joe Abbruzzi, vice president and general manager for Guardian Automotive Glass.

The company now applies the mirror coating at a different Guardian plant.

"We're bringing that capability in-house," Abbruzzi said. It will make the process more efficient and keep jobs in Auburn.

"These solar mirrors that we provide are laminated mirrors," Abbruzzi said. Each mirror has two layers of glass, with a layer of clear material between them. Most of Guardian's competitors make mirrors that use single panes of glass, he said.

"We've taken the technology that we have for making windshields and have applied it to making mirrors," Abbruzzi explained.

Like windshields, the Guardian mirrors will not shatter from an impact. But that's not their big advantage for solar use.

"You get roughly a 2 percent improvement in reflectivity, which may not sound like a lot," Abbruzzi said about the laminated mirrors. "If you're talking about a billion-dollar field, and you can reduce the size by 2 percent, you're talking about a lot of money."

Abbruzzi said a solar power producer can save tens of millions of dollars by building a solar field using Guardian's mirrors.

The solar mirror panels measure roughly 65 by 67 inches. They concentrate the sun's rays to heat oil-filled tubes, which make steam to generate electricity.

Building of solar fields currently is stalled by economic conditions, Abbruzzi said. It could be 2011 or 2012 before orders for solar mirrors start to increase, he added.

"I'm confident that over time, we'll fill the Auburn facility - part of it anyway - with this solar product," Abbruzzi said.

The Auburn plant began making solar mirrors about two years ago. It continues to make glass for automotive use, the primary product since the local plant opened in the mid-1980s. Abbruzzi said the plant supplies glass for rear liftgates on all GMC Yukons, Chevrolet Suburbans and Cadillac Escalades.

Abbruzzi said he cannot release the current number of employees at Auburn's Guardian Industries factory.

Last spring, he said solar-mirror production involved about 60 of the 200 people were working then at the Auburn plant.