GBT USA Inc., a company that designs and manufactures wind turbine blades, is investing $17.6 million to open a facility in Evansville that will create up to 400 new jobs by 2014.
The company plans to lease and equip a 45,000-s.f. facility that will house the company’s engineering design and consultancy offices and the production of wind blades, molds and tooling. In 2013, GBT will build an additional facility in southern Indiana to manufacture composite rotor blades for wind turbine generators.
According to the American Wind Energy Association, Indiana increased its installed wind capacity ten-fold in 2009 and 2010, becoming one of the fastest growing states for wind power. With 2.4 percent of the state’s power provided by wind last year, Indiana is ranked 12th in the country for most installed wind power capacity, all of it in the last few years. It is estimated that the wind power industry created up to 2,000 direct and indirect jobs in the Hoosier state in 2010.
“GBT is capitalizing on an underserved segment of the wind energy market,” said Dan Oberle, general manager of GBT USA. “Evansville is an ideal location to serve the industry as it is centrally located to the massive wind farms of the Midwest and the flurry of offshore activity to the east and south.”
A subsidiary of The Netherlands-based Global Blade Technology, GBT USA was incorporated in 2009 in Cincinnati and focuses on designing and producing custom rotor blades for wind turbine generators for customers around the world.
Add Comment