Business Facilities - September 2008 - (Page 39)

Siemens produces 12-ton wind turbine blades (inset) that have a wingspan of almost 150 feet each. Acciona also is making huge turbines in Iowa, which has become the leading U.S. wind turbine manufacturing hub. cations also opened up existing facilities already equipped with 50-ton heavy cranes and high bays that are prerequisites for large-scale turbine manufacturing. The available facilities also were situated adjacent to interstate rail lines. Trinity Structural Towers, a builder of turbine towers, now employs 160 at the former Maytag site. TPI will begin hiring this fall to produce turbine blades for GE Energy, which has signed one of the largest single-year contracts for wind turbines in the history of the global wind industry ($1 billion, with Invenergy LLC). Because a large wind turbine can require more than 8,000 parts, the successful establishment of a turbine manufacturing hub in Iowa also is spawning a rapidly expanding network of tier 1 and tier 2 original equipment manufacturers and suppliers. More than 90 companies are supporting the wind-turbine indus- which is driven by agricultural try in Iowa, Rossate says, and the giants like Monsanto and Archer overall investment has topped $500 Daniels Midland. Iowans may have taken corn and million. “The next big wave is the compo- wind for granted in the past, but nent suppliers, including [suppliers of] there’s nothing corny about the methodical way they are busy putgenerators and gears,” he adds. Rossate says a lot of the credit for ting these abundant staples to work Iowa’s burgeoning alternative energy as engines for economic developindustry belongs to Gov. Chet Cul- ment. Iowa is a wind power force to ver, who has aggressively promoted a be reckoned with. renewable energy strategy for the Hawkeye State. Culver has dubbed Iowa’s wind energy hub “the Silicon Valley of the Midwest.” The wind turbine manufacturing initiative has grown in tandem with Iowa’s sprawl- Cutting edge: Siemens officials inspect ing ethanol pro- a turbine blade at the company’s manufacturing plant in Fort Madison, IA. duction capacity, BUSINESS FACILITIES 39 PHOTO CREDITS: (BOTTOM RIGHT AND INSET) SIEMENS; (TOP) ACCIONA

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Business Facilities - September 2008

Business Facilities- September 2008 Contents First Word Snapshots Corporate Moves:�Mississippi Editor's Location Picks 2008 The Palmetto State Reaches Across the Sea Corporate Moves:�Tennessee Metro Spotlight:�Spokane, WA Biotech: Building Block for Development Wind Power Lifts Iowa Germany:�Europe's Economic Juggernaut California Here We Come Up, Up and Away in North Carolina Corporate Moves:�West Virginia Metro Spotlight:�Decatur/Greensburg, IN Advertiser Index Ask the Expert

Business Facilities - September 2008

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