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| Dowding Industries of Michigan hopes to revolutionize the manufacture of wind turbine components. Photo credit: Dowding Industries |
When Jeff Metts, president of Michigan-based manufacturer Dowding Industries, attended the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) conference in Los Angeles in 2007, he was unsure if his company, which started out as a tool and die shop in 1965, would find a role to play in the new clean energy economy. The company, which employs 160 workers, had already reinvented itself once in 1997, moving away from manufacturing machines for the auto industry and toward the manufacture of construction equipment.
But Metts was surprised and invigorated by what he saw at the AWEA event. “Everybody had a look in their eye like this might work,” he said. “And being from Michigan, we had the idea that we could do this better than anybody else.” Shortly thereafter, Dowding built a new facility in Eaton Rapids specifically for wind manufacturing, where it plans to revolutionize the manufacture of wind turbine components using processes and materials that it hopes will reduce the cost of wind energy to the point that it is competitive with coal.
Metts compares today’s wind turbines to the automobiles of 1964: “When I was a kid, you would never take a car with high mileage on a long trip. Now, you wouldn’t think twice. That’s where the automotive companies have come over the years.” And that is where wind manufacturers still have a long way to go. According to Metts, wind turbines are being manufactured on machines that were built during World War II and are ripe for improvements to make them lighter, more efficient and less costly.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and the state’s Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth (DELEG) were thinking along just these lines when they decided to designate a portion of Michigan’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds for clean energy advanced manufacturing grants. They set aside $15.5 million in ARRA State Energy Program funds to support small manufacturing firms that seek to diversify into renewable energy manufacturing and have sound plans for producing the next generation of renewable energy systems.
“We want to position Michigan as a leader in this next generation of manufacturing,” said Amy Butler, Bureau of Energy Systems director at Michigan DELEG. “We have a knowledgeable and talented workforce; we have the manufacturing infrastructure; we have a long history of manufacturing in a next generation technology mindset; we have a lot of universities; and we also have a great workforce training system. With all of those assets together, it was perfect.”
In December 2009, DELEG awarded its Clean Energy Advanced Manufacturing (CEAM) grants to five Michigan manufacturers, including a $7 million grant to Astraeus Wind Energy Inc., a partnership of Dowding Industries, and another Michigan company, MAG Industrial Automation Systems.
Metts said that Dowding’s approach to wind energy was to study where in the manufacturing process the company could make improvements. The company realized that by developing a specialized, state-of-the-art machine to manufacture large wind turbine components, it could significantly reduce the time it takes to manufacture them. In collaboration with MAG, Dowding designed a machine that will manufacture a wind turbine hub in 4 and ½ hours—a major breakthrough when contrasted with the 22 to 30 hours it currently takes using existing technology. Dowding estimates the new machine should be in operation by October 2010.
Astraeus has more wind manufacturing improvements in the works, including using carbon fiber rather than fiberglass to produce spar caps, which are wind turbine blade center beams, and eventually entire wind turbine blades. “It’s not a new technology, it’s a transfer of technology out of aerospace into the wind energy business,” Metts said. MAG currently manufactures aircraft wings and fuselage components from carbon fiber. Metts says wind turbine blades made from carbon fiber will be more durable, 30 percent lighter, and create 15 percent more energy than blades that are currently in use.
Additionally, Astraeus plans to use automation technology that will make wind turbine blades more uniform, and there is the potential for the company to use fiber optics on the blades to enable wind farm operators to quickly and easily assess their condition.
These are just the types of advances DELEG had in mind when it created the Clean Energy Advanced Manufacturing Grants. “We believe that within Michigan, there is this spirit of doing things better, and we believe that in certain activities the manufacturing can be done more efficiently. When we’re talking about advanced manufacturing, we’re talking about best in class,” said Robert Jackson, section chief of DELEG’s Green Practices Section.
Other CEAM Grants went to a roofing company that has developed solar shingles using multicrystalline cells that produce more power and can be installed in less time than earlier versions, and a machining company that is manufacturing gearless, next-generation wind turbine systems, among others. Each company that received a grant had to document how it would create jobs, source from local suppliers, and contribute to the state’s goal of generating 10 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2015. Each grant recipient also had to show it had secured commitments for additional project funding so that DELEG could be sure its grants would leverage further private and public resources for the clean energy manufacturing sector.
Metts believes that these grants and the technological advances they are supporting have the potential to bring manufacturing jobs back from places like China and Europe to states like Michigan. “This is a great country,” Metts said. “And I think a great country has to have a very strong manufacturing base and a very strong agricultural base. We create things, we make things, we feed people. I think we can be the leaders in this [renewable energy] industry, and I think it’s extremely important that we take the lead in what we can be the best in the world at. I think that’s where we need to go.”
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