The structure, expected to go up in April, will become part of a 1.5-megawatt wind turbine at the Camelot Industrial Park off Route 3 in Plymouth.
“For Mass Tank to grow and survive, we have to continuously look at bringing on additional products,’’ said Mass Tank’s chief executive, Carl Horstmann, who declined to say how much the Goldwind contract is worth. “Making the rolled, steel towers is a natural evolution.’’
Mass Tank is another example of how firms in traditional industries adapt to changing times and changing markets, and a reminder that Massachusetts’ innovation economy is hardly limited to technology and biotechnology. Over the course of the past two centuries, the state’s manufacturers have survived and prospered by finding new products and customers, advancing from textiles to telecommunications to medical devices.
For companies like Mass Tank, “Clean energy is providing a new marketplace for them,’’ said Greg Bialecki, the state’s secretary of Housing and Economic Development.
Indeed, Horstmann already envisions a jump in business that could come from building turbine towers, especially with Governor Deval Patrick pushing to install 2,000 megawatts of wind power capacity in Massachusetts by 2020, enough to power at least 525,000 homes.
As the only turbine tower manufacturer in Massachusetts so far, Horstmann figures Mass Tank would have a competitive advantage for local projects since the cost of transporting the large, heavy structures is so high. Getting a wind turbine tower from a manufacturing plant to its final location typically costs about a third of the project’s final price tag. But since the Goldwind tower is traveling a relatively short distance, transportation will be much cheaper, said Stephen Lynch, Mass Tank’s executive vice president for business development.
