Winds of Change

Jan 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Amy Florence Fischbach, Contributing Writer

Growth in the renewable generation market has fueled the need for a unique breed of skilled workers

Americans' demand for clean, reliable energy has blown the door wide open for electrical contracting firms specializing in wind farm work recently. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the U.S. wind energy industry installed $3 billion of new generating capacity in the first quarter of 2008 — enough to power 400,000 homes. Wind projects also comprised 30% of all new power generating capacity in the United States in 2007. Although wind power makes up only 1% of the nation's electricity consumption today, by 2030, 20% could come from wind energy, says the Department of Energy.

Photo 1. A construction crew prepares to lift the blades of a wind turbine during a wind farm project.

“It will take a huge amount of effort to reach this goal, but if we're successful, we'll be able to create hundreds of thousands of jobs for electricians and electrical contractors,” says Jim Johnson, senior mechanical engineer for the Wind Technology Center Program operated by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Department of Energy (DOE).

Electrical contracting firms are not only installing single turbines for homeowners and businesses, they're also wiring hundreds of turbines for utility-scale wind farms (Photo 1). While wind farms are a side business for some contracting firms, they have evolved into a major part of some companies' portfolios. Muth Electric, a Piedmont, S.D.-based electrical contracting firm, for example, wired its first wind farm eight years ago. Since that time, its electricians have wired 500 towers on 30 wind farms.

“This market is just going to keep expanding, so we're continuing to pursue it,” says Paul Muth, vice president of project operations for Muth Electric.

Working on wind farms (see How To Achieve Success in the Wind Industry on page C25) is not the only opportunity for electrical contracting firms to break into the renewable energy market. Some businesses are helping homeowners and companies to reduce their dependence on the utility power, cut energy costs, and conserve the environment.

For the past seven years, PowerPlus Electric, Piedmont, S.D. has installed wind turbines ranging from 2kW to 100kW for residential and commercial clients. The installed cost of the turbines ranges from $14,000 to $90,000, depending on the size and number of turbines. PowerPlus first conducts a site survey to find a location free of obstructions, designs a system based on the needs of the client, and then installs the foundation and turbine for the wind turbine. Typically, it takes two days to install the small-scale wind turbines — one day for the trenching and concrete and another day for the setting of the turbine and electrical site.

Photo 2. Electrician preparing low-voltage cables for termination in the bottom of a tower.

With the rising cost of energy, the firm is in a good position to take advantage of future opportunities in the renewable energy market, says Mark Holstein, project manager for PowerPlus Electric.

“We have some of the best wind in the nation, and we wanted to take advantage of that,” he says. “Right now it's fairly competitive, but sales for renewables are only going to get better over time.”

Training technicians

With the industry growing by leaps and bounds, developers, vendors, and utilities are screaming for qualified electricians and wind technicians (see What is a Wind Technician? on page C24), says Scott Anderson, the dean of business and technology for the Wind Turbine Technology Center at Highland Community College in Freeport, Ill., which is one of about a dozen schools offering degrees for wind turbine electricians.

“We needed qualified people yesterday,” says Anderson, who helped his college start up a two-year associate's degree in wind energy in August 2008. “They want us to train people, and get them out the door as fast as we can — so they're ready to go out of the box.”

The wind developers often snap up young high school graduates with a mechanical aptitude and pair them with experienced wind technicians or electricians. In fact, many try to hire them right out of a wind training program, Anderson says.

Photo 3. Electricians installing elbows on 35kV cable for termination inside of a sectionalizing cabinet.

“We've had guys show up at our door and say that they wanted eight of our students,” Anderson says. “I told them that they had only been in class for a month-and-a-half. It would be like hiring an electrician who has never pulled a fuse.”

A local wind developer contacted his community college about launching a wind training center a few years ago. After doing some research, Anderson quickly found 565 open jobs in Illinois for wind turbine technicians. At that point, not a single school was offering a two-year degree for technicians. With the construction of a $750,000 training center, however, the college is able to churn out the next generation of wind turbine technicians through a combination of hands-on and classroom training.