LM Glasfiber (Lunderskov, Denmark) announced in mid-July that it will build a new U.S.-based wind turbine blade manufacturing facility in Little Rock, Ark. The plant is scheduled to come online in the first quarter of 2008 and will employ more than 1,000 people within five years, says the company.
Company CEO Roland Sundén said in a company release that the Arkansas plant will enable LM Glasfiber to serve its increasing number of North American customers and keep up with production demands resulting from the region’s current boom in wind power projects — a boom so large that The Wall Street Journal has reported that numerous U.S. wind power installations have stalled due to the shortage of turbines and blades.
LM’s new Little Rock facility, one of three that the company now operates in North America, will double LM’s production capacity on this continent. The company’s other two plants are located in Grand Forks, N.D. and Gaspé, Quebec, Canada. In the last six months alone, the company has hired more than 400 new employees, making LM Glasfiber the largest rotor blade manufacturer in North America.
Arkansas’ governor Mike Beebe says that LM’s selection of Little Rock brings prestige to the state in addition to skilled technical jobs: “LM Glasfiber also elevates Arkansas’ presence among the growing state and national interest in the renewable energy industry.�
Elsewhere in the world, LM Glasfiber has signed a three-year supply agreement with turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems A/S (Randers, Denmark) for the supply of 1,500 wind blades for Vestas’ V82-1.65 MW turbine, which is produced in Chennai, India. The blades will be delivered from LM Glasfiber’s factory in Bangalore as well as from a new factory to be built in Dobespet, both in the state of Karnataka, a hub of the Indian wind energy market. LM Glasfiber was recently honored as the recipient of the American Wind Energy Assn.’s (AWEA) Commercial Achievement Award at the recent WINDPOWER 2007 event in Los Angeles, based on LM Glasfiber’s growth and contribution to increase the domestic manufacturing base for wind turbines in the United States. AWEA executive director Randall Swisher noted that LM Glasfiber has helped make the wind industry an important contributor to the electric power industry.