WINDSOR - Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the Danish manufacturer of wind turbines that opened a blade factory in Windsor earlier this year, is seeking a location to manufacture the huge towers that support the turbines, sources familiar with Vestas said.

While the company's site selection scan is statewide, several sources ranging from economic development officials to companies that do business with Vestas said that Northern Colorado is a focal point for the project that could provide hundreds of new jobs.

Vestas managers, constrained by strict securities regulation in Denmark, did not comment on the process of locating a manufacturing site, but public financial reports earlier this year show that Vestas is intent on expanding its North American presence.

The Windsor blade factory was the company's first manufacturing venture on this continent. But in a yearend financial statement Vestas announced the tower factory plan, without specifying a location, as well as its intent to build a research and development center somewhere in North America.

Economic development agencies in metro Denver and Northern Colorado are working on both scenarios.

"We're evaluating an R&D site and the towers site," said Laura Brandt, economic development manager at the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. "A lot of what happens in this process of due diligence is a series of 'what ifs,' and that's where we are right now."



Colorado focus

Brandt said Vestas was focused exclusively on Colorado for the tower manufacturing site, but was looking further abroad for a research center that will begin operation next year with about 80 scientists and engineers, most hired locally.

For the tower plant, the company will need a large parcel of land served by freight rail, a combination that Northern Colorado can provide at several locations, including the Great Western Industrial Park where construction is under way on the second phase of the blade factory.

Municipal officials in the region, who requested anonymity, said more than 1,000 new jobs could result from further expansion of Vestas' manufacturing presence.

"That's an important number, given what they've already done with the blade plant in Windsor," said Colorado State University regional economist Martin Shields, whose university post is paid for by the Northern Colorado Economic Development Corp.

"That gets us back to almost half the manufacturing jobs we lost" after cutbacks in the technology sector earlier in the decade, he said. "They've seen that the workforce is here, and is sufficient for their needs. So far, they haven't had a problem getting the numbers."

A manufacturing expansion by Vestas would underscore the development of wind energy as one of the most important economic sectors in the state. Last week's announcement by Texas-based Dragon Wind that it would employ 200 workers in Lamar at a wind-turbine tower plant is another indicator of the growth in wind energy.

"Wind is hot in the United States right now," Brandt said. "We have finally discovered what Europe has known for 20 years. ...The whole wind industry is looking at what we call the wind corridor that runs all along the entire Front Range."

NCEDC president Maury Dobbie said she was aware of Vestas' plans for expansion, and that she hoped Northern Colorado would have a role to play.

"It's widely known that Vestas is seeking to expand their manufacturing presence in North America," Dobbie said. "We're unaware of any decision on their part. Once that decision is made, we expect to hear about it, along with everyone else. Any effort by Vestas to make an investment in Colorado, and in Northern Colorado, would be most welcome."



Tall and weighty

The towers that support Vestas' V90, 3-megawatt wind turbines, the blades now coming off the assembly line in Windsor, would be about 260 feet, or 26 stories, tall and weigh 176 tons. Manufactured and shipped in sections, the towers are assembled onsite at wind-energy projects.

A tower plant in the region would fit into Vestas' practice of shipping wind turbine components - towers, blades and the school-bus size nacelles that enclose gearboxes and generators - on a single freight train.

"If they ship anything in this country by rail, they do it as unit trains," Brandt said.

Windsor blade plant manager Hans Jespersen in a Business Report interview earlier this year said the company would consider the option of the building of the 75-ton nacelles, currently shipped from plants in Europe, in the Northern Colorado region.

A rail network that includes the regional Great Western Railway, owned by Denver-based Broe Cos., the Union Pacific Railroad and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway is one of the state's biggest drawing cards for wind energy expansion, Metro Denver EDC executive vice president Tom Clark said.

"We've been pitching Vestas on using unit trains to ship all their components," Clark said. "We can really take advantage of the infrastructure we have in place."

Besides the Great Western Industrial Park in Windsor, other Northern Colorado sites that offer sufficient land and heavy rail service that Vestas would require include the Iron Horse Industrial Park, a McWhinney project just east of the Centerra retail centers on the northeast corner of Interstate 25 and U.S. Highway 34 in Loveland. Rail-served industrial land is also available near the Anheuser-Busch brewery northeast of Fort Collins.

Should Vestas choose one of those locations, the jobs that would result would fill the gap that Shields said has opened during the years since manufacturing layoffs began. While starting wages for Vestas production jobs in Windsor are $32,000, a lavish benefit package make them equivalent to $42,000-per-year jobs with most other employers.

"It really serves a certain demographic, those people who might not have college degrees," Shields said. "That's been a real soft spot in the Northern Colorado economy."