Wind Turbine Manufacturing in Colorado
Posted on October 23, 2008 Comments (2)
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Two weeks ago, on Aug. 15, Gov. Ritter announced that Vestas was building two new manufacturing plants in Brighton. The wind-blade production plant and nacelle assembly factory represent a $290 million capital investment and will bring 1,350 new jobs to Colorado.
Just months before that, in March, the company opened Vestas Blades America Inc., a $60 million manufacturing plant in Windsor, north of Denver, employing about 464 people to build blades for wind turbines. Before that plant was even finished, the company announced in November 2007 that it would increase the plant 50 percent in size, production and employee numbers.
This is a reminder that manufacturing output continues to grow in the USA. In June they received an order for 500 MW in the USA. In October Vestas has received orders for 102 MW of turbines from Italy and 99 MW of turbines from Spain.
Related: Wind Power Provided Over 1% of Global Electricity in 2007 – Wind Power Potential to Produce 20% of Electricity Supply by 2030 – Home Use Vertical Axis Wind Turbine
Categories: Economics, Energy
Tags: economy, Energy, green, manufacturing, wind power
2 Responses to “Wind Turbine Manufacturing in Colorado”
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October 24th, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
One more feather in the cap of American Manufacturing. In my opinion, the manufacturing sector in the USA is unmatched anywhere in the world when it comes to ingenuity, problem solving and productivity and I have myself written several articles to this effect on my site. However, the general media seems to concentrate only on the cost of production of a component and needless to say, the US is not necessarily the cheapest place to manufacture goods. The blame for this does not fall completely on the shoulders of the production worker either.
If Vestas was ONLY interested in low cost manufacturing, they could have done in several other parts of the world. Why do it in Colorado? Well, this is proof again that other factors also need to be considered when judging manufacturing feasibilities.
We need more articles like this to be written, so that the true picture of the strength of manufacturing in America is showcased to both the general public and to the potential customers. Thank you for a wonderful write-up
February 24th, 2009 @ 5:37 pm
I was in Pittsburgh in November for an invention contest; needless to say I was impressed with one of the inventions which will be the next generation of wind turbine generators. If I am quoting this correctly the generator design allow the capture of up to 60% more energy from the wind in a single unit. The ramifications of this design are impressive. The physical prototype was the size of the medium size electric motor, though the inventor “John Kelley” has plans to build his generator design on a large scale with appropriate funding and have it released to the market with in five years. This is a guy to watch!! His investor presentation video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXub1j7Q2Is