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Business feature: Clovis team part of wind turbine demonstrationDec 15, 2009 (Clovis News Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- By Kevin Wilson CNJ STAFF WRITER [email protected] If you're going to spend $100 on a cellular phone, you're probably going to want to see a floor model in action. Now replace "cellular phone" with "wind turbine," and "$100" with "$1 million. The need for demonstration remains. "If you want to buy something that's a 20-year asset," Walt Hornaday of Celo Wind Power said, "you want to see it work reliably." That's why Hornaday, the president of Celo, said the company is working with a national company with offices in Clovis to get out a "floor model" of wind turbines built by Samsung Heavy Industries. Celo Wind Power of Austin, Texas, has selected Baker RD and its Clovis team to work on the three-turbine project outside of Lubbock, with construction started earlier this month. According to a release from Celo, the first of three Samsung 2.5-megawatt turbines should be operational by January, and the entire project will be completed in the first quarter of 2011. "They had quite a bit of experience working on projects around the Southwest and they had the ability to do work on a very quick schedule," Hornaday said of Baker RD, which couldn't be reached for this story. "This is a small project, so we're relying on the self-oversight of a key contractor." Samsung is based in Seoul, South Korea, the world's second-largest shipyard, and got into the wind turbine market to make up for a drop in vessel orders. The American Wind Energy Association said on its Web site that wind energy could supply up to one-fifth of U.S. electricity needs. Hornaday said any wind generated by the demonstration turbines would go into the energy grid that serves eastern New Mexico. To see more of The Clovis News Journal or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.clovis-news-nm.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, Clovis News Journal, N.M. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |