Siemens announced today that it has selected Tillsonburg, Ontario, for its Canadian wind turbine blade manufacturing site. It’s the company’s first manufacturing plant for wind turbine components in Canada and represents an investment in excess of $20-million. The manufacturing, service operations and associated back-office activities are expected to create up to 300 jobs.
An additional 600 related jobs are expected to be created during the construction and commissioning phase of the project. This new manufacturing facility is intended to allow Siemens to help Samsung and Pattern Energy meet their contractual requirements to supply 600 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy to the province of Ontario. The factory is expected to produce all of the wind turbine blades for Siemens projects in the province.
“Just this week we inaugurated our first manufacturing plant for wind turbine components in China, and Canada is a quite promising growth market as well,” said René Umlauft, CEO of the Siemens Renewable Energy Division. “In 2009, Canada entered the ‘Top 10 wind power markets in the world’ by installed capacity.”
Through its Green Energy Act and the associated Feed-in Tariff (FIT) program, Ontario has become one of the most supportive provinces of wind and other renewable forms of energy, such as solar.
Siemens currently has eight projects with a capacity of approximately 950 MW commissioned or underway in Ontario and Manitoba. Canada’s current installed capacity climbed by 40 per cent to 3549 MW in 2009 – enough electricity to power more than one million homes.
Wind power capacity in Canada is expected to increase to more than 15,000 MW in 2020 and thus is projected to provide approximately 11 per cent of the country’s total power generation.
Renovations to the Tillsonburg facility will begin later this month with the facility expected to be production ready in October 2011. “By opening a new factory in Canada, we will be able to increase our ability to competitively serve the important North American market,” according to Bill Smith, senior vice president, of the Energy Sector.
Related articles
- Tillsonburg gets Siemens factory, up to 900 jobs (thestar.com)
- Ontario fights green energy criticism with jobs (reuters.com)
- Tillsonburg to make blades for Windsor wind tower plant (windsorstar.com)
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