Siemens to Build $50 Million Wind Power Factory in Kansas

By PAUL GLADER

Siemens AG plans to announce today that it will open a $50 million facility in Hutchinson, Kan., to make wind-turbine parts for the North American market.
Siemens, the No. 3 turbine producer in North America with a 9% market share of installed megawatts, plans to break ground on the facilities this summer and expects to have 400 workers producing the wind-turbine drive trains, known as nacelles, at the 300,000 square foot facility by the end of 2010. Nacelles are 90-ton boxes that sit atop the tower of a wind turbine and connect the blades to a drive train and gear box. Siemens used to import the nacelles from Denmark.
An adjacent 80,000 square foot facility will provide repair and services for wind turbines.

A wind mill supplies water to a stock tank, surrounded by wind turbines of the Smoky Hills Wind Project near Wilson, Kansas.

Companies like Siemens and Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems A/S are building facilities near planned wind farms in the Great Plains states to minimize transportation costs for the gargantuan equipment – blades larger than a 747 wingspan, nacelles the size of motor homes and towers as high as a football field is long.
The U.S. wind power market expanded dramatically in 2008, adding a record 8,500 megawatts of power generation, as well as factories and workers to produce the turbines. In the past six months, the credit markets have affected orders and growth in the wind turbine market. But the large turbine makers are still expanding and improving production capabilities in the U.S., expecting stimulus funds to eventually take effect.
Siemens says it plans to increase employment in its wind unit in the U.S. by 25% to 1,000 in the U.S., for a total of 5,500 worldwide.
"Vestas and GE were a little bit ahead of us. They started in the wind business a little bit earlier," said Randy Zwirn, President and CEO of Siemens Energy Inc., noting Siemens entered wind power in 2005 with the acquisition of a Danish firm. "We have had solid growth."
Write to Paul Glader at paul.glader@wsj.com