Smart Grid Technology (Business Week)

Smart Grid Technology October 5, 2009, 8:18PM EST The Coming Energy Revolution
Smart-grid technology will bring huge savings to companies as varied as Cisco, PG&E, and Cargill, and to consumers, too. But who will foot the bill?
By Rachael King

Food producer Cargill is taking a carving knife to its electricity bills. At a plant in Springdale, Ark., where the company handles about 50,000 turkeys a day, electricity bills run more than $2 million a year. But Cargill thinks it can cleave $680,000 from the total by using its own generators on high-demand days.

The secret behind this money-saving plan lies in what's known as the smart grid—a wholesale revamp of the system that distributes energy to homes and businesses around the country. Government bodies and utility providers are in the early stages of this multibillion-dollar upgrade to transform the existing grid into a two-way network where power and information flow in both directions between the utility and the customer, not just from the provider to the user.

Done right, the revamp will cut bills, reduce consumption, give users more say in the kinds of energy they use, and even let customers produce their own energy and sell it back to power providers. "What's going to happen with the smart grid is that we're going to create a network that's larger than the Internet," says Guido Jouret, chief technology officer for the emerging-technologies group at Cisco Systems (CSCO), one of the many companies working on the technology needed to modernize the electric grid.

A $20 Billion Market in Five Years
The Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit research and design group, estimates that it will cost $165 billion, or roughly $8 billion a year for 20 years, to create the smart grid. The market for the gear needed to overhaul smart-grid communications alone may reach $20 billion a year in five years, Cisco estimates. Other technology companies developing smart-grid software and hardware include IBM (IBM), Oracle (ORCL), Google (GOOG), and Siemens (SI).

The tech sector's interest is fitting considering the similarities between the energy-grid upgrade and the computing revolution of the 1980s that saw hulking, centralized mainframes give way to PCs. The existing U.S. power grid dispenses electricity but is limited in its ability to gather intelligence from end users—hence the monthly visit from a meter reader. Now utilities are replacing outmoded meters with so-called smart meters that foster a back-and-forth between customer and utility. In much the same way PCs opened the door to third-party software and services and use of the Internet, smart meters are paving the way for tools and services that make the system more responsive to shifts in energy demands.

Cargill is counting on smart-grid tech to lower its bills. Many utility vendors set rates for industrial customers based on peak-use patterns. So in a common practice known as peak-shaving, Cargill taps its own generators to keep its 365,000-square-foot Springdale plant cool on summer's hottest days rather than use energy from its electricity vendor, PowerSecure (POWR). The challenge is determining when peaks occur. PowerSecure keeps close tabs on Cargill's generators, as well as fluctuating electricity prices, and when it can tell that rates are on course to pass certain preset thresholds, it fires up Cargill's generators remotely.

Easier to Opt for Solar or Wind
In the future, Cargill may choose to run its generators more often and sell power back to the utility when prices are high, says PowerSecure CEO Sidney Hinton. While Cargill's utility provider doesn't currently purchase energy generated by customers, other utilities, including PG&E (PCG) in California, have begun buying solar energy generated by customers on corporate campuses and residential rooftops.

Another benefit is that customers may soon get more leeway in determining the nature of the power they purchase, more easily opting for renewable energies such as solar and wind, says Matthew Trevithick, a partner at venture capital firm Venrock. Companies that are actively trying to cut their carbon footprints, such as Coca-Cola (KO), may be able to specify the percentage of renewable energy they buy, opting to pay more for wind, for example, if it helps them meet go-green targets.

But questions abound over who will foot the bill for the grid's modernization. The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act has allocated $4.5 billion in grants and loans through the Energy Dept. for the smart grid to enhance security and to ensure reliability of the electric grid to meet growing demand.

What of the remaining costs? Often, capital improvement expenses are passed along to customers. Before that, though, utilities need a green light from state regulators. "Certain states will go first because of cost," says David Leeds, an analyst specializing in the smart grid for Greentech Media. For instance, he says that in California, electricity costs 15¢ per kilowatt hour, compared with about 5¢ in Georgia.

Discounts for Lower Peak Usage
California utilities are leading the way in smart-meter installation. Northern California's PG&E is the leader, spending $2.2 billion to deploy 5.4 million smart meters, according to a Greentech Media report. Southern California Edison is No. 3, spending $1.63 billion on 4.8 million smart meters. (Columbus (Ohio)-based American Electric Power (AEP), with a goal of installing 5 million meters, lands between the two California utilities.)

Utilities stand to benefit from smarter-grid technology, too—particularly during high-demand periods. When demand for electricity exceeds supply, such as on hot summer days when air conditioners are running, utilities must find additional power or potentially face blackouts. Some are forced to tap expensive, natural gas-burning power plants that are kept for just such a purpose. Alternatively, utilities can buy power on demand from the spot market. The problem in either scenario is that rates charged for electricity remain constant even when the cost of supplying it can surge. As a result, utilities may lose money on hot days even though consumers are using more power.

Many utilities have encouraged consumers to voluntarily engage in energy efficiency, but changing consumer behavior can be challenging. For example, Southern California Edison has used the slogan "Give your appliances the afternoon off" for decades to try to get customers to reduce the strain on the grid from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., when millions of customers turn on large appliances such as clothes washers and dishwashers. While energy-efficiency programs have helped reduce consumption, the utility stands to make even bigger gains with the installation of smart meters.

Plants Can Keep Going During Storms
But as information on usage is extended further to the residence or business, customers will be able to see just how much energy their lighting, air conditioning, and appliances use. "The idea is that electricity costs more at peak-demand times, so if you showed those pricing signals to people, they can choose to shift usage to off-peak times," says Jeffrey Taft, global smart-grid chief architect at Accenture (ACN). The smart grid will also give utilities the ability to automatically turn down business and consumer appliances on peak days. Customers would probably be given some sort of discount in exchange for letting the utility cut power to certain systems at key times of the day.

In Springdale, Ark., the local utility once faced a high-demand day and called and asked Cargill to fire up its generators and separate from the grid—and paid the company to do so. "In the long run it netted out a lower cost for us," says Cargill Engineering Manager Jim Edwards. Those generators have come in handy at other times, too. When there was a big ice storm in Northwest Arkansas this past winter, Cargill ran the generators for six days straight to keep producing turkey meat. "We were the only facility in this area to continue processing products," says Edwards. "If the plant had been closed for those six days, it would have lost about $1.2 million."

King is a writer for BusinessWeek.com in San Francisco.

Clean Energy: LED lighting market growth (WSJ)

LED Growth Is Making Sapphire Supplies Look Precious

By Sari Krieger
Of DOW JONES CLEAN TECHNOLOGY INSIGHT
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The light-emitting diode market is heating up and expected to boom in coming years, but there is already a supply chain bottleneck in the material on which the LEDs are grown - known as a sapphire substrate - which could hinder LED industry growth.

Manufacturers of the substrates, which are synthetic versions of the precious stones, haven't been able to produce enough to keep up with the recently rising LED demand, causing sapphire prices to spike. While this shortage may slow adoption some, or may hurt LED makers, it could benefit the few suppliers that do make this material, which include Rubicon Technology Inc. (RBCN), Monocrystal PLC, Kyocera Corp. (6971.TO, KYO) and Namiki Precision Jewel Co.

Jed Dorsheimer, an analyst with Canaccord Adams Inc., warns that the shortage issue is "severe." He said that in order to meet demand, current sapphire capacity has to grow by two to three times, depending on how much the LED market expands.

When the economy started to revive last year, demand for LEDs grew quickly for use in backlighting, such as for televisions, as well as for general lighting applications. According to the Department of Energy, LEDs are 10 times more energy efficient than incandescent lights and companies are starting to take advantage of these savings. The DOE predicts that LEDs will make up 70% of the lighting market by 2020, up from less than 1% currently.
Similarly, The Freedonia Group Inc., a Cleveland-based research firm, forecasts that U.S. demand for advanced lighting products such as LEDs, compact fluorescent lamps and sodium vapor HID lamps will grow 11% per year to $6.8 billion in 2013.

Dorsheimer said rising demand already has boosted sapphire prices by 50% in the past seven months, but he doesn't expect new capacity to come online until 2011.

He said the industry average price for a two-inch sapphire wafer went from $18 in 2007 to $10 in June 2009 to $15 now. A four-inch wafer, which has been less widely produced, has held steady at $80 to $90, he said.

Bill Weissman, chief financial officer of Franklin Park, Ill.-based Rubicon, said his company saw a 7% rise in the price of its sapphire in the last quarter of 2009 and predicts another 15% rise this year. But Weissman said that the sapphire is only 8% of the material for the LED chip, so it shouldn't affect the price of the final LED too much.

Expanding sapphire production to meet the rising demand can't be done quickly, according to Tom Griffiths, president and publisher of LED industry publication Solid State Lighting Design News.

"Sapphire production is capital-equipment driven, and both investment and credit funding is still being approached cautiously, so getting the money to expand isn't as easy as it may have been in past years," he said.

"Tightened supply will increase the sapphire costs and somewhat dampen the industry growth," Griffiths said. "That will be relatively short lived, as increased profits will make capital equipment expansion easier for existing suppliers, as well as enable new entrants to show a convincing business plan to get funding for equipment."

Companies grow sapphire by heating aluminum oxide to 3,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Then LED manufacturers buy the sapphire wafers and load them into machines that lay on top of the sapphire wafer chemical layers of gallium nitrite, which is the light-emitting material. Compared with natural sapphires, the manufactured versions don't have impurities and are therefore clear.

Dorsheimer said that because companies were hesitant to expand production, waiting to see whether the increase in demand would remain, it will take a year or two for sapphire-makers to catch up with demand. Also, he said that LED-makers are asking for larger sapphire wafers, up from the traditional two-inch wafers, making production more difficult.

"New entrants are starting on four-inch and six-inch [wafers]," Dorsheimer said. "This reduces the number of sapphire suppliers as the specifications change when going to larger wafers - quality becomes more important."

Weissman said his company has ordered more machines to expand capacity. The company is building two new plants, one in Malaysia and one in Batavia, Ill., but they won't be ready until later in the year. Until Rubicon and other sapphire makers can expand, the world's sapphire supplies are tapped, Weissman said.

As well as the benefits of higher prices flowing to sapphire makers, Griffiths said Durham, N.C.-based LED-maker Cree Inc. (CREE) could gain a competitive advantage from the sapphire shortage because it uses silicon carbide as a substrate to grow LEDs.
"[Cree] can therefore presumably keep their cost-saving ramp moving unhindered," Griffiths said. "Eventually every LED manufacturer benefits as there will surely be a period of excess sapphire supply that will tank those substrate prices, at least temporarily while supplies adjust and consolidation occurs."

(Dow Jones Clean Technology Insight covers news about public and private clean-technology and alternative-energy companies.)

-By Sari Krieger, Dow Jones Clean Technology Insight; 212-416-2016; sari.krieger@dowjones.com

Where the Jobs Will Be (WSJ)

Landing a Job of the Future Takes a Two-Track Mind
Career Experts Say Positions in Growing Fields Will Require an In-Demand Degree Coupled With Skills in Emerging Trends


By DIANA MIDDLETON

If you're gearing up for a job search now as an undergraduate or returning student, there are several bright spots where new jobs and promising career paths are expected to emerge in the next few years.

Technology, health care and education will continue to be hot job sectors, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' outlook for job growth between 2008 and 2018. But those and other fields will yield new opportunities, and even some tried-and-true fields will bring some new jobs that will combine a variety of skill sets.



The degrees employers say they'll most look for include finance, engineering and computer science, says Andrea Koncz, employment-information manager at the National Association of Colleges and Employers. But to land the jobs that will see some of the most growth, job seekers will need to branch out and pick up secondary skills or combine hard science study with softer skills, career experts say, which many students already are doing. "Students are positioned well for future employment, particularly in specialized fields," Ms. Koncz says.

Career experts say the key to securing jobs in growing fields will be coupling an in-demand degree with expertise in emerging trends. For example, communications pros will have to master social media and the analytics that come with it; nursing students will have to learn about risk management and electronic records; and techies will need to keep up with the latest in Web marketing, user-experience design and other Web-related skills.

Technology Twists

More than two million new technology-related jobs are expected to be created by 2018, according to the BLS. Jobs that are expected to grow faster than average include computer-network administrators, data-communications analysts and Web developers. Recruiters anticipate that data-loss prevention, information technology, online security and risk management will also show strong growth.

The Next Finance Hiring Hot Spots
A computer-science degree and a working knowledge of data security are critical to landing these jobs. Common areas of undergraduate study for these fields include some of the usual suspects, such as computer science, information science and management-information systems.

But those might not be enough. That's because not all of those jobs will be purely techie in nature. David Foote, chief executive officer of IT research firm Foote Partners, advises current computer-science students to couple their degrees with studies in marketing, accounting or finance. "Before, people widely believed that all you needed to have were deep, nerdy skills," Mr. Foote says. "But companies are looking for people with multiple skill sets who can move fluidly with marketing or operations."

Social media has opened the door to the growth of new kinds of jobs. As companies turn to sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to promote their brands, capture new customers and even post job openings, they will need to hire people skilled in harnessing these tools, Mr. Foote says. In most cases, these duties will be folded into a marketing position, although large companies such as Coca-Cola Co. are creating entire teams devoted exclusively to social media.

Similarly, employment for public-relations positions should increase 24% by 2018. Job titles—like interactive creative director—will reflect the duality of the required skill sets.

Back to School
Students will have to study strategy to maximize relationships between third-party content providers and their company's Web team. Other key skills will be search-engine optimization to maximize Web traffic and marketing analytics to decipher the company's target demographic, says Donna Farrugia, executive director of Creative Group, a marketing and advertising staffing agency in Menlo Park, Calif.

Many universities and community colleges are offering certification programs focused on burgeoning sectors. For example, the University of California at Los Angeles's extension program offers a certificate in information design.

That, program, like similar certificate studies at other schools, aims to give students an edge in Web site search optimization—a major attraction for Web-based companies who want to boost user traffic, says Cathy Sandeen, dean of UCLA's extension program.

User-experience design—a sort of architecture for information that Web viewers see—is another emerging field. Jobs there include experience specialists and product designers at firms ranging from computer-game companies to e-commerce Web sites.

Ms. Sandeen says the school will offer a certificate program for user-experience design as well, at a cost of about $3,000 to $5,000. The program will run one to two years, depending on a student's schedule, and will couple product design with consumer psychology and behavior.

"Our students [will] learn to think like anthropologists, evaluating how easy it is to utilize the products," she says.

Not surprisingly, green technology, including solar and wind energy and green construction, are also booming areas. Engineers who can mastermind high-voltage electric grids, for example, will have a great advantage over other job applicants, says Greg Netland, who oversees recruiting for the U.S., Latin America and Canada for Sapphire Technologies, an IT staffing firm in Woburn, Mass. that is a division of Randstad.

"Global sustainability will become more important to employers," Mr. Netland says. "It cuts costs, making experts in the field highly attractive to employers."

Jobs in alternative-energy systems, including wind and solar energy, will require a variety of skills: engineers to design systems, consultants who will audit companies' existing energy needs, and those who will install and maintain the systems.

Financial Opportunities
Despite the slashing of positions seen in the financial sector during the economic crisis, recruiters also expect thousands of new jobs to be created in the compliance field, says Dawn Fay, district New York/New Jersey president of Robert Half International.

Ms. Fay counsels job seekers to look at the misdeeds of the past year or two to identify where new jobs will bloom in the financial sector. "It was a year of Ponzi schemes and banking meltdowns," she says. "Be strategic and position yourself as someone who can mitigate those risks."

That makes risk management an emerging specialty with strong growth in jobs expected. Those on track to be financial analysts can get additional certification in risk management through organizations like the Risk Management Association or the Risk and Insurance Management Society.

"Risk management was a mainstay in financial companies, but I believe it will be present in every Fortune 500 company," says Jeff Joerres, chairman and chief executive officer at staffing firm Manpower Inc.

Hospital Upgrades
Health care is expected to continue to see a surge in hiring, with more than four million new openings estimated by 2018, according to the BLS. Hiring for physical and occupational therapists will likely be strongest. But new specialties are popping up, particularly in case management, says Brad Ellis, a partner with Kaye Bassman International, an executive-search firm based in Plano, Texas.

Case managers do everything from managing the flow of information between practitioner and insurance company to mitigating risk to the hospital.

"If you're a licensed nurse, for example, getting a certificate in risk management from the state board of health would make you extremely competitive," Mr. Ellis says.

Harris Miller, president of the Career College Association in Washington, D.C., says IT will be increasingly important in the quest to drive down health-care costs, too. Students specializing in nursing informatics, which combines general nursing with computer and information sciences, at the master's degree level will swap a clipboard for a smart phone to manage patient data. Schools like Vanderbilt University are offering nursing informatics degrees via distance learning, and certification is offered through American Nurses Credentialing Center, based in Silver Springs, Md.

The strong push toward making medical records and information more accessible through computerized record-keeping means opportunity, Mr. Miller says. "This is going to require people who are skilled in the hardware and software of nursing informatics."

Write to Diana Middleton at diana.middleton@wsj.com

Commodity Plays on Electric Cars: Lithium

MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2009
COMMODITIES CORNER


Hybrids Drive Lithium Miners
By SHANE ROMIG | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR
Lithium, the next big thing for car batteries, spurs mining plays

THE PUSH TOWARD ELECTRIC-CAR development in the U.S., Europe and Japan is fueling a mad dash to lock in lithium-mining rights high in the Argentine, Bolivian and Chilean Andes. Lithium is a key ingredient in the batteries that fuel electric and hybrid cars, and nowhere is there so much of the light, charge-holding metal as in the South American mountain range. What's more, as much as 90% of the world's known lithium brine -- in which the metal is in a relatively accessible dissolved state, rather than locked in stone -- is said to be in the region's salars, or salt lakes, in Argentina's Puna Plateau.
Already, well over half of the world's lithium output comes from mines in Chile and Argentina run by Sociédad Quimica y Minera de Chile (ticker: SQM); Chemetall Foote, a subsidiary of Rockwood Holdings (ROC); and FMC (FMC).While the U.S. has pledged $2.4 billion in stimulus spending on advanced battery technology, companies from Japan, Korea and China have been busy courting Bolivia's President Evo Morales to lock in supply deals from the Salar de Uyuni salt flats. In June, a consortium of Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi (MSBHY), Sumitomo (8053.Japan) and Japan Oil (9074.Japan) made a preliminary proposal to begin mining lithium, but Bolivia says it wants to see more domestic processing on-site before it will consider granting concessions. And in August, South Korea's state-run Korea Resources Corp., or Kores, said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Bolivia's state-run miner, Comibol, to jointly study lithium-mine development.
THE RACE IS HOTTEST IN ARGENTINA. Dozens of junior exploration companies and speculative investors are betting big on the lithium-brine deposits there. New York-based research firm Hallgarten & Company analyst Christopher Ecclestone recommends taking a long, speculative position in two lithium leaders in the region, Orocobre (ORE.Australia) and Latin American Minerals (LAT.Canada). "They're pure-play," he says. Farthest along is Orocobre, which hopes to start construction on its Olaroz project in 2011. Latin American Minerals has locked in the rights to 93,000 hectares and is currently analyzing the results from a sampling program. Australia's Admiralty Resources prepped the massive Rincon project, but a Cayman Island-based entity controlled by the Sentient hedge-fund group snapped it up last year for the fire-sale price of around $27 million.
With expectations for booming demand, lithium users are banking on the South American miners. "While demand for refined lithium should continue to increase as electric-vehicle penetration improves, we expect supply to easily keep up," says Aimee Gordon, a spokeswoman for rechargeable-battery maker Ener1 (HEV). But some worry that a flood of new suppliers rushing to get lithium to market may pressure prices. (Lithium is not yet traded on a commodities exchange.)
In fact, Chile's SQM on Sept. 30 announced it was cutting prices for lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide by 20% for new supply contracts to "accelerate demand recovery." That doesn't faze Orocobre's chief executive, Richard Seville, who says: "I don't think there is any risk of oversupply, as most of the projects [being talked about now] won't end up going into production."
________________________________________
SHANE ROMIG is a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires in Buenos Aires.
________________________________________

Renewable Energy, Clean Technology: Water, Solar, Hydrothermal , Wind, Biofuel Companies (Businessweek)

Renewable Energy
May 06

By Aaron Pressman

Clean energy may be the wave of the future, but shares of alternative energy suppliers have taken investors on a wild ride. After getting hit hard by the credit crunch last year, the sector has rallied recently as stimulus plans from the Obama Administration and other governments promise substantial sums for renewable energy projects. The Market Vectors Global Alternative Energy ETF, which tracks 30 companies around the world, lost 61% last year but has risen 22% over the past three months.


Much of the money will likely go to the industry’s biggest and best-known companies, like Denmark’s wind farm developer Vestas Wind Systems or solar-panel maker First Solar of Tempe, Ariz. There will also be opportunities for smaller players. But “this can be a hairy sector for investing in early-stage companies,” says Edward Guinness, co-manager of the Guinness Atkinson Alternative Energy Fund.

While solar and wind projects are now commonplace, geothermal power is less developed. Geothermal systems typically use heat found deep underground to make steam and generate electricity. WaterFurnace Renewable Energy in Fort Wayne, Ind., builds heat pump systems that don’t require deep drilling for homes and businesses. The technology takes advantage of modest but consistent temperatures of about 55 degrees found a few feet underground. Air pumped underground is heated or cooled, which reduces the load on traditional heating and cooling systems and cuts energy bills by about two-thirds. Over time, that offsets installation costs. Revenue is growing 50% a year, and installations haven’t been hurt by the credit crunch, says Jack Robinson, lead manager of the Winslow Green Growth Fund. Guinness’ fund owns Energy Development Corp., a Philippine utility that oversees a dozen geothermal plants and consults on projects for others.

Stocks in the biofuels area have been crushed, not just by difficulty obtaining financing but by overbuilding and rising prices for key ingredients. It isn’t clear which players will survive. Still, the sector could one day generate big profits so it pays to stay up to date, says Guinness. He thinks Maple Energy, a Peruvian oil and gas producer, could become a leading ethanol supplier. Even so, Guinness sold the stock last year after a runup. “When they get their plant up and running, they’ll be the world’s lowest-cost ethanol producer,” he predicts. But he’s waiting to see how the project progresses.

President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce air pollution with a system of tradable pollution rights, known as “cap and trade,” could lead to the development of trading exchanges rivaling those for stocks, bonds, and derivatives. U.K.-based Climate Exchange, a publicly traded company, is the leading player in European pollution-rights trading, but Guinness says it’s too pricey at more than five times expected 2009 revenue (it has yet to show a profit). Unless a national cap-and-trade system becomes a reality in the U.S., the stock is too speculative, he says.

Another player, World Energy Solutions of Worcester, Mass., trails Climate Exchange in revenue. But new Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson is familiar with the type of system World Energy has developed, which could bode well for the technology, says Winslow’s Robinson. “They’re a small player but are just becoming profitable and growing at a 50% rate,” Robinson says. Investing in it now, he adds, is like being a venture capitalist

Wind Power Companies (Wall St Journal)

Wind-Power Giant Keeps to Its Course

By PAUL GLADER
Danish wind-power giant Vestas Wind Systems A/S is hoping that a greener U.S. economy will translate into more green in the bank.

Alternative-energy projects have been scaled back in recent months as oil prices have dropped and developers have struggled to secure financing. Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens delayed his $10 billion wind farm in Texas, and solar-power suppliers have laid off workers.

But Vestas is proceeding with a $1 billion plan to build six factories in Colorado and a research center in Houston that could create 4,000 U.S. jobs by the end of next year. Vestas, the world's largest maker of turbines but a distant second to General Electric Co. in the U.S., is laying off workers in Europe and shifting production to the U.S. to better compete with GE. It hired 650 workers at its new blade factory in Windsor, Colo., and is recruiting 500 for a tower factory in Pueblo, Colo.

Vestas's push is part of a scramble among wind-power companies to better position themselves in the U.S., in the hope that President Barack Obama's administration will make good on pledges to back alternative-energy production. The $787 billion economic-stimulus bill enacted in February contains modest new tax breaks.

GE and Germany's Siemens AG, which is No. 3 in the U.S., also are adding production capacity and hiring workers. Siemens on Tuesday plans to announce that it will open a $50 million factory in Kansas to make turbine parts. Companies from Spain and India are also developing a presence.

Vestas Chief Executive Ditlev Engel is particularly bullish on the U.S., calling the corridor from North Dakota to Texas the "Saudi Arabia of wind." He says Vestas is picking up talented engineers and quality specialists being laid off by auto makers and other manufacturers.

SOS Staffing, which is recruiting for Vestas in Colorado, says some new hires are moving from hard-hit manufacturing states like Michigan. And small parts makers that used to supply the auto industry are now retooling their equipment to make the thousands of metal parts that go into a wind turbine.

The American Wind Energy Association estimates the U.S. will add 5,000 megawatts of new capacity this year, down from 8,500 last year. That made the U.S. the global leader in wind-power capacity, surpassing Germany with 25,300 megawatts -- enough to power seven million homes.

Analysts say wind's short-term prospects are better than those for solar energy because it is cheaper and easier to deploy. Gordon L. Johnson II, head of alternative-energy research at Hapoalim Securities in New York, says wind power can generate electricity at 30% to 40% lower cost than solar panels.

Vestas, which posted revenue of €6 billion ($8 billion) last year, claimed 19.8% of the roughly $48 billion global wind-turbine market in 2008, down from 22.8% in 2007, according to BTM Consult APS, of Denmark. GE was second, with 18.6% market share in 2008, up from 16.6% a year earlier. But GE, of Fairfield, Conn., dominates the U.S.; GE's 2008 market share was 43%, compared with Vestas's 13%.

GE's wind-turbine business, acquired from Enron Corp. in 2002, recorded $6 billion in revenue last year. The company's seven plants world-wide can build 3,600 turbines a year and are sold out through 2011, says Victor Abate, vice president of GE's renewable-energy business, though some customers are postponing deliveries. A plant in Pensacola, Fla., will make the company's new 2.5-gigawatt turbines in North America.

Siemens projects that its new factory in Hutchinson, Kan., and an adjacent service facility will employ about 400 workers by the end of 2010. It reports no order cancellations and says it is seeing more bid requests. But Andreas Nauen, president and chief executive of Siemens Wind Power, says "new orders are not coming in as quickly as we expected."

The companies say building facilities in the Midwest's Wind Belt will reduce costs for transporting the equipment -- blades larger than a 747 wingspan and towers as high as a football field is long -- to wind farms going up in the Great Plains states.

Write to Paul Glader at paul.glader@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page B10