The city of Pueblo may be inching closer to one of the best pieces of economic news it has had in a long time. A Korean company that took over the building of wind turbine towers in Pueblo from Vestas Wind Systems in August 2021 is now in serious discussions with the city to triple the size of its operations making it the largest employer in the city and perhaps one day becoming the biggest manufacturers of wind towers in the world.
While the details for the expansion of the manufacturing operation remain a work in progress, if all goes well, CS Wind very likely will be knocking at Pueblo’s door with an ambitious plan to expand the size of the city’s wind turbine manufacturing plant on an exponential level. The Pueblo operation is already the biggest wind turbine manufacturing plant in the entire country.
A delegation from the city, including Mayor Nick Gradisar, Pueblo City Councilman Dennis Flores, Pueblo Community College President Patti Erjavec, PCC Dean of Arts and Sciences Young Kim along with several plant workers recently visited South Korea, and toured CS Wind’s Seoul headquarters.
If everything works out, said a cautiously optimistic Gradisar, it could be a boon for Pueblo. The company, he said, has big plans and indicated perhaps tripling its current workforce of 420 to “eventually 1,300 jobs,” he said. “These will be good jobs,” the mayor said with starting salaries of “$20 an hour with no experience.” Gradisar said there’s already “a waiting list” of people wanting to hire on.
While Vestas is no longer in Pueblo, the company still has operations in two Colorado cities, Brighton and Windsor. The Brighton plant makes nacelles for wind turbines that are now common sites across the country. Nacelles are the housings that contain the components for operating the turbines including generators, gearboxes, drive trains and brake assemblies.
The Windsor plant builds the distinctive turbine blades spin in the wind. On average a single blade is approximately 116 feet in length, a length that makes it possible for transport on a truck bed. The largest blades, however, can be up to 165 feet in length. Gradisar said that if Pueblo and CS Wind can come together on the right deal, the city would manufacture only land-based equipment. Because offshore towers are considerably bigger, manufacturing them would have to be in or near a port city on the east coast. Towers for west coast wind farms are shipped directly from Korea to the U.S. across the Pacific Ocean.
Vestas Wind Systems remains a big name in wind energy equipment design, manufacturing, installation and servicing of wind turbines in 88 countries. It employs more than 7,000 workers worldwide, including its two Colorado plants. The company has been in business since 1945.
The evolution of the wind turbine has been almost meteoric in little more than a generation. In 1990, the average height of a wind turbine was approximately 130 feet and capable of generating 0.5 megawatt—approximately one million watts of energy. It is estimated that there are today nearly 71,000 wind turbines across the U.S.
Today it is not unusual to see wind turbines towering nearly 450 feet in height and capable of creating ten megawatts of power. By comparison, a football field measures only 300 feet.
While CS Wind’s operations in Pueblo are moving along, said Gradisar, the company is hoping that it can get an accelerated permitting process to allow it to move ahead on its expansion plans. Gradisar indicated he met with Governor Polis to address CS Wind’s ask. It “requested the Governor’s assistance in expediting the air quality permit,” he said. The company also requires permitting to paint the facility. “Ordinarily,” said Gradisar, that’s a process that normally would take “18-25 months.”
If everything works out, Pueblo will be an operating base for one of the country’s most in-demand energy products. Since 2010 power supplied by wind turbines across the continental U.S. U.S. has tripled. By the end of this decade, wind energy will double its current output and predicts the Department of Energy, it will double again by 2050. Additionally, wind energy will also generate an estimated 600,000 jobs and supply more than a third of the country’s energy.
Benefits of wind energy are numerous; it’s clean—no greenhouse gas emissions—and inexhaustible; it’s cost effective; its price will drop as technology improves; it provides an efficient use of lang; it aids in revitalizing rural economies and supports agriculture.
But despite its great selling points, wind energy also has its downsides. Wind-watch.org, a website that tracks both benefits and detriments of wind energy, says the towers require new and unsightly high-voltage lines; they create noise and shadows, compromising the aesthetics of nature; they can have a negative impact on wildlife, especially migrating bird routes. Some species have learned to navigate away from the towers but in the process often lose historic habitat that provides food.
As in almost any deal involving cities and potential new business partners, there remain a lot of big-ticket items still on the table. Cities often cut sweetheart deals to woo new businesses like offering tax breaks, infrastructure improvements and a host of other things. To date, there has been little said about where these discussions are between Pueblo and CS Wind.
But while things seem to be moving in a positive direction for a long-term commitment between Pueblo and CS Wind, a source with knowledge on the state of negotiations cautions that it might be wise to pump the brakes. Any deal that takes place is still, perhaps, months away. That, of course, is not to say that a deal will not happen, he said, only that it would be wise to be patient. Both sides want the deal that best benefits them and that simply takes time.
