Vestas to hire 1,000 in Colorado
Vestas said 850 of the jobs will be at two plants that make blades. One is already operating in Windsor and another is nearing completion in Brighton.
An additional 167 new jobs will be created at a Pueblo plant that makes towers for the turbines.
Vestas plans to hire the new workers over the next 18 months, bringing the company's Colorado work force to about 2,200, said Denna Randall, director of finance and information technology for Vestas Blades America.
Vestas has a second plant in Brighton that makes nacelles, housings that contain the turbine's generator, transformer and gearbox.
The jobs are in addition to as many as 240 positions announced last week for a Vestas research and development office planned in Louisville, Colo.
One of Vestas' recent orders is for a 250-megawatt wind farm at Cedar Point, about 75 miles east of Denver, which would be the second-largest in Colorado. It's scheduled to be substantially complete in late 2011.
Broomfield-based RES Americas will build the wind farm, and a U.S. affiliate of the Canadian firm Enbridge Inc. will own it. The electricity will be sold to Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy Inc. under a 20-year contract.
Xcel is the largest electric utility in Colorado.
RES Americas also will build a 42-mile transmission line to connect the wind farm to Xcel's grid.
Related News

Tunisia moves ahead with smart electricity grid
TUNIS - The Tunisian parliament has approved taking a $131.7 million loan from the French Development Agency for the implementation of a smart grid project.
Parliament passed legislation regarding the 400 million dinar ($131.7 million) loan plus a grant of $1.1 million.
The loan, to be repaid over 20 years with a grace period of up to 7 years, is part of the Tunisian government’s efforts to establish a strategy of energy switching aimed at reducing costs and enhancing operational efficiency.
The move to the smart grid had been postponed after the Tunisian Company of Electricity and Gas (STEG) announced in March 2017…