Source: The Great Lakes IT Report
Posted: Tuesday, 17 March 2009
by Matt Roush
Two Michigan entrepreneurs say they plan to begin putting thousands of people to work in the wind energy industry this summer.
Global Wind Systems Inc. says it will employ 300 at its Novi assembly operations by this fall, building the central hubs of huge 1.5 megawatt wind turbines. CEO Chris Long likens the hubs to "70-ton school buses" in shape and size.
Meanwhile, Gilbert Borman and his Borman Holdings LLC hope to act as a supplier of gears to Global Wind Systems.
The dirty little secret of today's rapidly growing American wind power industry is that virtually all of its hardware is imported from Europe, which has been pursuing wind power for 30 years now. Long and Borman aim to change that, with the enthusiastic support of state officials like Stanley "Skip" Pruss, director and chief energy officer of the state Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth.
Long said Michigan's long legacy manufacturing expertise gives it substantial advantages in wind turbine manufacturing, and global demand is astounding.
Long said current industry figures show a global market for one 1.5 megawatt wind turbine to be built every 20 minutes, but the industry today builds only one every four and a half hours. Customers can wait three or more years for delivery even after they're paid in full. And small projects like the city of Wyandotte's proposed five-turbine layout can't get any manufacturer interested in building for them.
"It's the greatest industrial opportunity since Henry Ford," Borman said.
Each wind generator runs $2.5 million to $3 million. So "if we can ramp up and produce a couple thousand of these a year" in Michigan, Borman said, "it's the equivalent of Chrysler Corp." in terms of economic impact.
And it's no flash in the pan. Borman, Pruss and Long said there will be demand for hundreds of thousands of wind units a year for the foreseeable future.
Borman and Long said a nonprofit is being established, the Michigan Wind Institute, to coordinate the state's wind energy efforts among industry, academia, the nonprofit sector and utilities. Among its tasks: development of a wind-enabled engineering curriculum at the state's two- and four-year colleges.
Long said his company's plans call for 2,000 jobs at Global Wind Systems within three years, and doesn't envision a problem recruiting – since he said research shows there are 24,000 skilled trades people within 50 miles of Novi. He said the wind industry has real potential to put much of Michigan's idled automotive work force back in productive use.
Nor does he have a problem with Michigan's unionization. "Unions are fantastic for us," he said. "They already have the training and skill sets we need. Millwrights and carpenters and utility workers union members know how to move big turbines around safely."
As for opposition to wind power on aesthetic grounds, Pruss said: "You can't change people's aesthetic sensibilities, but you can educate people about choices" between clean and dirty forms of energy.
Pruss also said Michigan is at the forefront of advanced energy storage – giant banks of batteries, both in utility settings and distributed around neighborhoods, to store wind power for when it's needed most. That counters critics who say wind isn't a long term reliable solution. Michigan is currently dangling $535 million in incentives to power storage developers, and thousands more jobs will be coming from that industry, Pruss said.
