USA - City economic development officials chose Tower Tech as wind energy manufacturer

City economic development officials were in negotiations with two wind turbine companies -- the Martifer Group, a company that announced plans to build a $40 million wind-tower manufacturing plant in San Angelo last week, and Tower Tech Systems -- at the same time earlier this year.

"We chose to focus our efforts on Tower Tech," said Richard Burdine, CEO of the Development Corporation of Abilene.

Attracting Martifer to San Angelo - and bringing with it 225 jobs over the next three years - is proving to be costly, as more than $8 million in city, county and state incentives and abatements had to be offered. That doesn't even count potentially $15 million more in rail improvements to be negotiated between the Texas Pacifico Railroad and the state of Texas.

By comparison, in its agreement with Tower Tech, DCOA approved $4.7 million in incentives to assist Tower Tech to build and equip a 146,000 square-foot, $20 million manufacturing plant in the Five Points Business Park in northwest Abilene on a 40-acre site north of PWP Industries. Seventy percent of the 150 Tower Tech jobs are expected to pay $40,000 to $50,000 per year. Clearing and grading of the Tower Tech site is underway, Burdine said.

"They plan to be producing wind towers by the first quarter of 2009," Burdine said. Alison Wroblewski, a spokeswoman for Tower Tech Systems, said the facility will build wind towers for Nordex USA, which will -- as has been reported -- then utilize another company to deliver the sections to various Texas locations.

It will be a "state-of-the-art, streamlined facility to support the growing wind industry," Wroblewski said. "By placing our new facility closer to our customers' projects, we are reducing the overall cost of wind energy for the consumer by reducing transportation costs and supporting local, USA manufacturing."

Her company, she said, manufactures steel wind towers for "all major turbine manufacturers in the world." Hiring efforts have already begun, she said. "However, the major effort to recruit and hire will occur this month and into October," Wroblewski said.

Meanwhile, while Concho Valley officials have said the attracting of Martifer, a Portugal-based global construction company, may lead to attracting additional wind-related companies, Burdine said that this has already been demonstrated in Abilene.

"We had an advantage in attracting Tower Tech as a result of our work with their sister company, Energy Maintenance Services," Burdine said. "Additionally, through the business retention efforts of the Abilene Industrial Foundation, we are constantly looking for opportunities to grow the wind sector of our economy. Opportunities may be with a sister company, as we saw with EMS and Tower Tech, and with suppliers and major customers of our current businesses."

Among wind companies already with a presence in Abilene, aside from Tower Tech Systems, are Energy Maintenance Services, Florida Power & Light Energy, Run Energy, Global Energy Services USA, Horizon Wind Energy and Gamesa Wind. Also, Burdine said, Zoltek manufactures carbon fiber, the majority of which is sold to wind turbine blade manufacturers.