Nordic Windpower picks Idaho for turbine plant

Berkeley, Calif.-based Nordic Windpower announced plans to build a turbine manufacturing facility in Pocatello, Idaho, for the North American market.

The company, which has its roots in a Swedish research and development program dating back to 1975, has developed a two-bladed design for utility-scale turbines.

"Pocatello has a favorable cost of operations, and an excellent workforce and location central to potential customers and transportation," said Steve Taber, CEO and co-founder of Nordic Windpower.

"These advantages will benefit our customers in competitive pricing for very high reliability. With the invaluable assistance at the state and local level, Nordic is ramping up rapidly to meet demand that is outpacing production across the industry."

In October, Nordic pulled in an undisclosed amount of financing from Goldman Sachs.

Nordic said it plans to create more than 160 new technical, engineering, and administrative jobs at the new Idaho facility, with additional positions to be created at its operational centers in California and the U.K.

Pocatello has also attracted Hawaii's Hoku Scientific (Nasdaq: HOKU), which plans to build a polysilicon plant in the city (see Shaw to build Hoku polysilicon plant).

Nordic said it will have options for expansion of up to four times the size of its 42,786 square-foot facility.

The company said volume production is expected to start in the third quarter for turbine delivery in November of this year.

Nordic expects to produce at least 20 turbines monthly by September 2009.