How Vestas Colorado factory jobs grew from a federal law
Vestas Colorado factory jobs are growing on a federal law, not turbine orders alone. Vestas says it committed 40 million dollars in 2023 to expand 2 factories in Colorado, Windsor Blades and Brighton Nacelles, and that the work means hiring up to 1,000 local employees to build the V163 turbine, a model rated at 4.5 megawatts, a measure of how much electricity a turbine can generate at once. The office of United States Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado states the investment is among the clean energy manufacturing that the Inflation Reduction Act, the 2022 federal law that funds clean energy manufacturing projects, drew to the state. Bennet highlighted the investment in August 2023 at a press conference marking 1 year since the law passed, alongside a 250 million dollar solar panel factory and a 400 million dollar solar cell factory also announced for Colorado.
A layoff, then a hiring wave
Vestas cut 450 jobs across its Colorado factories in 2021, when orders for new turbines fell, and it took a new wave of orders plus this 40 million dollar factory upgrade to push hiring back past the number of jobs lost rather than merely up to it. Factory employment in wind turbine manufacturing tracks the orders a company has booked rather than climbing steadily on its own, and the swing from a 450 job cut to hiring up to 1,000 is the clearest example of that pattern at these 2 Colorado plants.
Vestas cut jobs across its Colorado factories in 2021 when orders fell. The hiring figure is Vestas own phrase, up to 1,000, matching the ceiling of the range Manufacturing Dive independently reported.
Show the numbers
| Jobs cut in 2021 | 450 |
| Jobs the 2023 expansion hires | 1,000 |
With the majority of the 1.1 GW deal being domestically sourced, we are underscoring our commitment to deploying American-made renewable energy.
David Ivan, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Vestas North America. Source 1.
2 factories built for 1 turbine
The 2 factories split the work of building 1 turbine model between them. Windsor Blades, on 161 acres, is 666,000 square feet, and makes blades for the V163 turbine along with an older 2 megawatt model Vestas still produces there. Brighton Nacelles, operating since 2010, is 265,000 square feet and builds the nacelle, the housing that sits atop the tower and holds the generator and gearbox that turn spinning blades into electricity.
Windsor Blades sits on 161 acres and makes blades for the V163 turbine and an older 2 megawatt model. Brighton Nacelles has operated since 2010.
Show the numbers
| Windsor Blades | 666,000 |
| Brighton Nacelles | 265,000 |
What the expansion adds up to nationally
Vestas has booked orders for 5.4 gigawatts of the V163 turbine nationally, a gigawatt equal to 1,000 megawatts, including a single 1,089 megawatt order, built from 242 turbines, for the SunZia Wind project developed by Pattern Energy. By September 2024, more than a year after the investment was announced, Big Pivots reported the Colorado expansion complete or nearly complete, with hiring underway for day and night shifts at Brighton, and Vestas total investment in Colorado, across its history there since 2007, now exceeds 1 billion dollars. Vestas separately spent more than 465 million dollars across its Colorado supply chain in 2022, the year before the factory expansion began.
Reaching this monumental order milestone is a testament to Vestas unwavering dedication to advancing clean energy solutions across the U.S.
Laura Beane, President of Vestas North America. Source 1.