Round Rock to help Texas catch the wind
BYLINE: Shonda Novak and Robert Elder AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
A major wind-energy production alliance is scheduled to be announced Monday in Round Rock, raising the state's growing profile in the wind business.
TECO-Westinghouse Motor Co., a leading manufacturer of electric motors and generators, will announce an alliance with a California company to produce wind turbines at its Round Rock facility on Interstate 35 North.
TECO-Westinghouse employs 300 people at its plant and said it could add 100 to 150 more workers, depending on the orders generated by its partner, Irvine, Calif.-based Composite Technology Corp.
Texas is already the top wind-energy generator in the country and is one of six states in the running for a new federally backed wind turbine testing plant that could be up and running by 2009. But the Round Rock operation will be the first in the state to manufacture generators, which convert wind energy into electricity.
The TECO-Westinghouse alliance "can help build on Texas' position as a leader in wind power," said Susan Williams Sloan, an Austin-based spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group.
"The more expertise we build in this technology, the more likely we have future opportunities to grow that technology and use it in Texas," Sloan said.
In 2005, North American wind-turbine sales hit a record $3 billion, and the market is expected to more than double to just under $7.5 billion in 2010.
Texas generates almost one-fourth of all wind power in the country, more than any other state.
Wind power supplies between 2 percent and 3 percent of the state's electricity needs, enough to power more than 500,000 homes with clean energy, Sloan said.
Nationwide, wind power is expected in 2006 to provide up to 20 percent of the new capacity installed in the country, making it the second-largest source of new power generation after new natural gas, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Gov. Rick Perry said the alliance will create jobs as it solidifies Texas' position in the energy industry.
At a recent news conference with Perry, representatives of the wind industry said they were ready to invest $10 billion over the next five to seven years in Texas, assuming the state has the transmission capability to get that wind-generated energy to market.
"So this announcement by TECO-Westinghouse and Composite Technology ties in very nicely with that ongoing commitment by the private sector to renewable energy," Perry said through spokeswoman Kathy Walt. "It's further evidence that the private sector is committed to helping the state meet its growing energy needs, and it also furthers the diversification of energy production."
The alliance is expected to substantially increase TECO-Westinghouse's annual revenue, which was $102.3 million last year, according to online financial site Hoovers.com.
Hsien-Chun Meng, the president of TECO-Westinghouse, said Wednesday that the alliance will be divided into two phases: manufacturing turbines and later providing supply-chain operations by coordinating manufacturing, wholesale and retail elements of the project.
TECO-Westinghouse is a subsidiary of Taiwan-based TECO Electric & Machinery Co. Ltd. The company started as the Westinghouse Motor Co. in 1988, a joint venture between TECO and Westinghouse Electric. TECO acquired complete ownership in 1995.
Composite Technology officials declined to comment on the alliance.
The California company is a development-stage company that has mostly sold a special kind of cable for electric utility lines.
Composite Technology filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in May 2005, a process that was completed in November of that year. The company paid millions of dollars to creditors in cash and stock to resolve the bankruptcy.
In 2005, the company reported a loss of $40.1 million on $1 million in revenue, mostly due to resolving the bankruptcy, accounting changes, and spending on research and development.
In June 2006 the company acquired EU Energy PLC, a British developer and manufacturer of wind turbines.
The company said in a regulatory filing in September that it has an "order backlog for our next generation (wind) turbines."
In October, Composite Technology said it had signed an agreement to license wind turbine technology from GE Infrastructure, a leading player in the wind turbine business.
snovak@statesman.com, 445-3856; relder@statesman.com, 445-3671