Friday, February 6, 2009

Gov. Patrick: Wind turbine maker Vestas could do business in Bay State

By Mass High Tech staff

Reporting from the final day of his tour of West Coast technology companies, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said his meeting with Danish wind turbine maker Vestas A/S went well, and the world’s largest turbine maker could eventually become a customer of the Charlestown-based wind testing facility being built by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Last year, Vestas spurned  the Bay State as the location for its North American headquarters, eventually choosing Portland, Ore., after whittling the choice down to a handful, including Mass. However, Vestas later assigned a new research and development facility to the Metro West area of Massachusetts, home to Lunenburg-based ePower LLC, which Vestas acquired in 2005 for an undisclosed amount.

Gov. Patrick added that while Massachusetts is not well-suited for large, on-shore wind farms, the state does have the potential for many smaller installations, particularly in the western part of the state.

“I wanted to make sure they are thinking about these kinds of sites, and I think now, they are,” he said.

Last month, Gov. Patrick set a state goal of producing 10 percent of the state’s power, approximately 2,000 megawatts, through wind power by 2020. The state currently boasts 6.6 megawatts of installed wind power.

The governor’s tour covered a number of different companies and industries, including Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc., Google Inc., Facebook Inc., Hewlett Packard Co., and electric car developer Tesla Motors Inc.

Later today, Gov. Patrick is expected to visit gaming developer Electronic Arts Inc.