With the wind industry expanding across the country so will the need to repair gearboxes inside turbines.
A new company in Mukwonago, Gearbox Express has been formed to specialize in wind turbine gearbox replacement.
Currently the company is retrofitting a 43,000 square foot warehouse and expects to be operational by next year. The company has raised $1.8 million from investors and has been aided with a $1.8 million Small Business Administration loan along with a $3.4 million loan from the state of Wisconsin.
It is expected that Gearbox Express will create 100 jobs for the city of Mukwonago in a three year period.
Bruce Neumiller, the company's CEO said, "The firm will try to crave out a niche by having gearboxes ready to exchange and install at the same time the old gearbox is removed. That should result in cost savings for wind farm operator, who would need to bring in a crane only once rather than twice."
Wisconsin Wind Works is a consortium of nearly 300 suppliers and manufacturer's working collaboratively to satisfy foreign and domestic wind power supply chain needs.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Alliance member Milwaukee Machine Works Highlights its recent purchase of a Leitz PMM-G
The machine, purchased to specifically support MMW's wind energy market division reportedly enhances the company's measurement accuracy for quicker and more concise measurements.
The investment is expected to bring new opportunities to MMW, reports Manna.
"Helping customers that require the capability of the PMM-G is a natural extension of what we already do,” Manna said. “Some of these large parts are used in machinery that is difficult to rework if there are problems after initial assembly. Installing a 20,000-lb. gearbox in a wind tower involves tremendous logistics. The corresponding costs to remove a gearbox from the tower are equally daunting. Measuring parts to assure you have made them to the engineering specification with additional accuracy assurance minimizes that risk.”
Read the full article on Milwaukee Machine Works in Cutting Tool Engineering Plus Magazine
Friday, October 14, 2011
'ATC files plan for $31 million Wisconsin-Illinois power line' Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
American Transmission Co. on Thursday applied for state approval for a high-voltage power line that would cross into Illinois from Kenosha County.
The Pleasant Prairie-Zion Energy Center project would cost about $31 million and be built by 2014, under the utility’s plan.
The project, announced earlier this year, was one of several high-voltage power lines that company included in a $3.8 billion to $4.4 billion 10-year planning document it released last week.
Depending on the route selected, the 345,000-volt line would extend 5.3 to 5.8 miles between the Pleasant Prairie Power Plant and the substation at the Zion Energy Center, a natural gas-fired power plant built by Calpine Corp. in Zion, Ill.
Read the entire article on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's web site.
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