WIND AND SOLAR ENERGY SUPPORT ABOUT 30,000 JOBS AT ABOUT A THOUSAND COMPANIES IN WISCONSIN, ILLINOIS AND IOWA, ACCORDING TO A SERIES OF REPORTS RELEASED BY THE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW and Conductix-Wampfler, which employs 95 people at a factory in Harlan making rotor pitch controls and an alternative to copper cable for wind turbines.
The proliferation of wind farms in Iowa is an incentive for factories to locate there, since products don't need to be transported far. For example, Siemens' Fort Madison plant is supplying blades for more than 500 turbines being built as part of MidAmerican Energy Company's 2 billion investment in wind power in Iowa.
Iowa wind manufacturers also sell their products nationally and globally. For example Conductix-Wampfler is developing cable specifically for offshore wind power. Keystone Electrical Manufacturing in Des Moines has a 2.2 million contract to supply wind substations in Oregon, Washington and Pennsylvania.
In Iowa as elsewhere, wind manufacturers are taking advantage of manufacturing infrastructure from days past. For example, the Trinity Structural Towers plant in Newton, Iowa opened in the site of a former Maytag washing machine factory.
"You see old-line manufacturing companies retooling to produce clean energy," said Learner.
Solar components are less likely to be manufactured in the Midwest, but the installation of solar panels and related tasks provide many jobs. Eagle Point Solar, the company at the center of the state Supreme Court case that upheld third party financing, employs 22 people doing solar installations in Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin. Eagle Point and other companies not only install solar power but also in many cases own the installation and sell the power to the homeowner, business or organization.
There is also some manufacturing related to solar in Iowa, for example a DuPont plant in Fort Madison that makes a film used to help protect solar panels from harsh weather. Baird Mounting Systems in Waterloo makes mounting equipment for solar panels as well as antennas and satellite dishes. And PowerFilm in Ames makes thin film solar modules that are mounted on RVs, golf carts and batteries.
"States that get the policies right will drive solar development," Learner said. "There's an enormous number of jobs in installation, wiring."
WISCONSIN
Wisconsin has very little wind power installed, with only 648 MW. But it is actually home to more companies and clean energy supply chain jobs than in Iowa. There are 316 companies in the solar supply chain and 231 in wind, and 6,800 total people employed, the ELPC report says.
That's thanks to the state's rich history as a manufacturing hub, its transportation infrastructure and its research institutions - including the Energy Institute and Solar Energy Laboratory at UW-Madison and a public-private energy storage lab at UW-Milwaukee.
Companies include Cardinal CG, which makes glass for solar panels; DH Solar makes solar installations that track the sun; Applied Plastics makes a plastic used for the molds of wind turbine blades; and Faith Technologies, an employee-owned electrical contractor that installed 800 solar panels at Kohl's stores in Wisconsin.
The report calls renewables Wisconsin's only source of "domestic energy," as the state does not produce natural gas, coal or uranium. The report notes that after years of bipartisan support for renewable energy, the state has "reversed course" as Gov. Scott Walker, the Republican legislature and the Public Service Commission have pushed policies hostile to renewable energy development.
ILLINOIS
Illinois is home to 170 wind and 237 solar supply chain companies, employing a total of about 20,000 people. There are about 70 solar and 50 wind companies in the Chicago area alone, including 13 corporate headquarters of national and global wind energy companies.
The Illinois companies are notable for their size, with an average of 26 employees. Companies are clustered in the Chicago area along with Rockford, Peoria and other former manufacturing hubs.
Corporate headquarters in Chicago include Goldwind, the top manufacturer of wind turbines in China, with plans to build manufacturing plants in the U.S.; Gaelectric North America, a company developing wind projects in the UK and Ireland and also a 430 MW project in Montana; the German manufacturer Nordex; and Acciona, a global company in the running to provide renewable energy to the Department of Defense.
Legislation introduced last month to "fix" structural problems with the state's Renewable Energy Standard and also to increase the solar carve-out and the renewable goals in the standard could boost the Illinois wind and solar industry significantly.
New companies have sprung up, while other companies that have been around for decades have started making components for wind and solar energy - like Finkl Steel on Chicago's South Side, LB Steel in suburbs south of Chicago or Brad Foote Gear Works, a company in the suburb of Cicero that has been around for almost 90 years and remade itself as a wind energy supplier.
Learner noted that S&C Electric Company, a factory that supplies electronics for wind power, is just blocks from his home on the north side of Chicago.
"This is the Midwest, where we make things," he said.
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