Wind turbine manufacturer Siemans announced this week that it is to open a production facility in Kansas creating 400 new green collar jobs.
The 300,000 square foot facility is to provide for the rapidly increasing demand for wind turbine components in North and South America. Its role will be specifically to make the wind turbine nacelles and construction of the plant is due to start in August this year. Orders are already in place for the nacelles which are due to be shipped from December 2010. The plant is expected to churn out 650 wind turbine nacelles every year.
Peter Löscher, CEO of Siemens said “The United States already is and will continue to be one of the world’s fastest growing wind energy markets. We are thus intensifying our commitment to this green technology to further expand our leading global position in this field… We are already the leading green infrastructure giant. And by making these investments, we will become even greener.”
The move follows the opening of a wind turbine blade production plant in Iowa and the company now employs 5500 people in its wind power business.
The announcement demonstrates a growing green economy gap between those countries such as the US and China pushing forward to place their stake in the market place and other countries such as the UK which are at risk of falling a long way behind. The week before this announcement Vestas wind turbine manufacturer told the UK that it is likely to close its wind turbine manufacturing facility on the Isle of White.
Vestas CEO Ditlev Engel blamed nimby’s and the planning system for slowing demand at the turbine blade manufacturing facility. Engel said “In the UK nimbyism is a huge challenge” Ditlev. The company also blamed the weak £.
Vestas had planned to convert the factory on the Isle of White to make blades for the British market, but said yesterday that orders had not come through. Engel said that the low level of demand for wind turbine blades means the conversion is unlikely to go ahead.
