Vestas expands in Colorado

Vestas is expanding its Colorado workforce as turbine production ramps up, buoyed by a favourable renewable energy climate in the United States. “We’re looking to hire about 100 people primarily at the Brighton blades factory, though also at the Windsor blades facility,” Vestas external communications head Michael Zarin told reNEWS. The Danish turbine manufacturer is fully staffed at its Brighton nacelle and Pueblo tower factories. “We expect to be very busy in the United States this year,” said Zarin. The company employed about 3100 people in Colorado as of September 2015. Vestas has been expanding steadily since 2012 and 2013, when turbine orders slumped, jobs were cut and the Colorado workforce dipped to around 1000. The US government’s recent five-year extension of the 2.3 cents/kWh production tax credit, which will be phased out by 2020, helps provide long-term stability to developers and investors. President Barack Obama’s support for renewable energy is also driving expansion. “Wind sector growth is being driven by a powerful combination of wind energy’s growing competitiveness against other power generation sources – wind is already in the same price range as coal and gas generation in some parts of the country – together with a favorable policy climate and increasing sense of urgency to address climate change,” said Zarin. Vestas’ order backlog in the Americas totaled about 3.6GW as of 30 September 2015, with the majority relating to US orders.