Vestas consolidates R&D in Colo.

Source: E&E • Posted: Monday, October 8, 2012

The world’s biggest wind turbine producer, Vestas Wind Systems A/S, is consolidating its U.S. research and development operations into one location in Brighton, Colo.

The move is part of the company’s effort to centralize its design.

As a result, Vestas facilities in Houston; Louisville, Ky.; Colorado; and Marlborough, Mass., will be closing, and employees have the option of transferring to Brighton, according to company spokesman Andrew Longeteig.

During the next couple of weeks, Vestas is also shutting down R&D operations in Singapore and in the company’s home country of Denmark. Other sites in the United States, United Kingdom, Denmark, India and Germany will also see consolidation.

“It’s a global change,” said Longeteig. “When it all shakes out in the next six or seven months, we’ll have about six R&D facilities worldwide.”

The company is also cutting 16 percent of its workforce. In August, Vestas fired about 120 factory workers in the Brighton plant and in Pueblo, Colo. The company continues to maintain a staff of about 3,000 in Canada and the United States, Longeteig said (Justin Doom, Bloomberg, Oct. 4). — H