Nordex USA has is planning to locate its US manufacturing facility in Jonesboro. Nordex will invest approximately $100 million in the new facility, which will employ 700 people at an average wage of $17.00 an hour.

The company is building on 187 acres in the Craighead Technology Park.

"The new plant in Jonesboro is a key pillar in our international strategy. It will enable us to serve the US, one of the fastest growing markets for wind energy, and come closer to our objective of generating 20 percent of our revenues in the US," stated Nordex CEO, Thomas Richterich.

Nordex's Jonesboro operation will be an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) that will comprise every component of a wind turbine except the tower, including the manufacturing of rotor blades and the assembly of nacelles. The facility will have a target annual assembly capacity of approximately 750 megawatts (MW), with planned production to start by January 2010.

Nordex will focus in Jonesboro on its large-scale turbine family N90 and N100 (2.5 MW), which is one of the largest series in the world. The average size of the newly installed turbines in the US will amount to 1.7 MW.

In another development, the company has completed the 1,000th turbine in its N80/N90 series.

The most recent member of the product family is the N100, which is designed for inland locations with an extra-large rotor diameter of 100 metres.