Advanced Cutting solutions in New Orleans expand their business in wind turbine blade kitting
An uptick in demand from manufacturers looking to supply turbines for wind farms popping up around the globe is driving an expansion at Advanced Cutting Solutions.
The New Orleans-based company is investing $750,000 over the next two years for at least two more machines that it uses to make wind turbine blade kits — the building blocks used by manufacturers to assemble turbines for wind farms. The company expects to hire two dozen workers to run the machines to meet growing demand.
Renewable energy projects have increased as customers of utilities have demanded less carbon intensive ways to power homes and vehicles, while many nations, states, cities and businesses have committed to reducing greenhouse gases by 2050.
"We create the bones of the turbine blades themselves," said Peter Schneeweiss, co-founder and vice president and director of business development at Advanced Cutting Solutions, incorporated in 2014.
Those bones can be quite large.
The average height of wind turbines installed in the U.S. was 280 feet in 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. By 2017, onshore wind farm turbines are on average 466 feet, according to estimates by a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Meanwhile, offshore wind turbines can be even higher. The Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island is 590 feet. Wind turbine blades are typically longer than 100 feet. At those sizes, wind turbines are transported in pieces then assembled at the project location.
Typically, manufacturers contract with Advanced Cutting Solutions and send along 3D-scanned models of the wind turbine blade mold surface. The company then builds a prototype before completing the order. The wind turbine blade bones can be made of a variety of materials, such as PET foam, which is recycled plastic, PVC or even balsa wood that is largely harvested from trees in Latin America. Whichever materials are used as the core, it is wrapped in fiberglass during the manufacturing process.
"We cut those (bones) into puzzle pieces, like one through 1,000, and then turbine manufacturers assemble the puzzle" along the inside of the hull of a wind turbine blade, Schneeweiss said.
The company was co-founded by Schneeweiss and Nathanial Makin and has grown to roughly 75 workers, ranging from operators to engineers. Makin, president of the company, worked as an engineer for Schlumberger in the New Orleans area for several years before the pair began the venture. Schneeweis hails from New York state and previously worked in sales for Eastman Machine Co.
Wind turbine kits have been the fastest-growing part of the company's business, but it also seeks customers in marine vessel and transportation manufacturing because it can also do kit composites such as dry fiberglass and carbon fiber.
The company began building only a handful of wind turbine kits each year for smaller manufacturers but then approached larger companies as it became a standardized process and grew to 40 blades a week. Now it has capacity to manufacture 72 blade kits each week and expects to produce 100 blade kits to meet demand.
It grew from 3,000 square feet to 27,000 square feet by 2020. Last year, the company leased a new building in New Orleans East that's about 38,000 square feet and has been customized for the business. It is inside the Michoud Assembly Facility.
"We did an entire build-out over the last year," Schneeweiss said.
The company has an internal formal three-month training apprenticeship-style program. It pays operators state industry averages hourly and offers health insurance benefits along with a 401(k) plan.
"We really hired a lot of people without (specialized) skills, mainly people who are hardworking who we can trust and are reliable, willing to learn," he said. "We've trained almost everybody from within. It's a totally new industry."
Demand for wind turbine components has expanded steadily for the past five years, Schneeweiss said.
"There's a bigger push now, and our customers are looking to build more blades because their customers are looking for blades," he said. "We really put our attention to how we can get greater efficiencies for raw materials to make (wind turbine blades) more efficient. Back in the beginning, people were building these kits by hand, but one of the things that separates us is that it's automated, consistent and a reliable part every time it comes out. Customers have a more efficient kit because it's the same kit."
The goal is to grow even larger and secure contracts in other industries.
"We would like to expand our footprint here in New Orleans and nationwide and possibly globally," Schneeweiss said. "We'd like to expand (back) into other industries, such as transportation and aerospace."
