Italian gearbox maker Brevini expands

Brevini, an Italian gearbox maker founded in 1960, is moving its long-time US headquarters and manufacturing facility from a Chicago suburb to Muncie, Indiana. The company's plans reportedly include sending gearboxes overseas for use in the German wind power market, but contracts to feed North America's supply chain are also in the works. Brevini, which established its North American presence in the 1970s, is investing $62.5 million in the move. It expects to employ 455 people and build as many as 1000 gearboxes a year when a new facility is finished in 2011. The Indiana Economic Development Corporation is providing $3.9 million in performance-based tax credits and up to $300,000 in training grants. Area officials will be asked to approve about $3 million in economic development income tax and tax increment financing credits and $1.9 million in infrastructure improvements, including the extension of a rail line to the new Brevini facility. Indiana, which began 2008 with no wind plant, will end the year with more than 530 MW online -- the 400 MW first phase of BP Alternative Energy's Fowler Ridge plant and the 130.5 MW Benton County Wind Farm, a joint effort between Vision Energy and Orion Energy Group.