Stamford, CT, 19th February 2009 – Dave Berges, Hexcel Chairman and CEO, today welcomed Colorado Governor Bill Ritter and Mayor John Vazquez to a Groundbreaking Celebration at the construction site for Hexcel’s new facility in Windsor’s Great Western Industrial Park.

Hexcel announced on December 10th 2008 that Windsor, Colorado would be the location for their new prepreg manufacturing plant to serve the North American wind energy industry.  Since then, great progress has been made with the construction of the new facility.  Foundations have already been laid for the 100,000 square foot building, and exterior concrete walls were erected earlier this month.  Hexcel expects production to begin at the new plant in the second half of 2009.

Hexcel selected Windsor as the location for the plant due to the close proximity of Vestas Wind Systems, who will be a major customer for prepregs manufactured at the facility.  Hexcel and Vestas pioneered the use of prepreg in wind turbine blades over a decade ago and the strong, lightweight materials have been a major contributor in the growth of blades to today’s epic proportions.

HexPly® prepregs from Hexcel are epoxy resin formulations that are reinforced with glass and carbon fibers and supplied to customers on large rolls.  When prepregs are cured under heat and pressure they form exceptionally stiff structures with a very high strength to weight ratio.  This makes them ideal for the manufacture of large wind turbine blades.  Composite blades are lighter and therefore easier to install – and they are highly durable due to the non-corrosive nature of the composite materials.  

Dave Berges, Hexcel Chairman and CEO commented:  “The setting up of our plant in Windsor, Colorado, is another key step in Hexcel’s establishment of global operations to support the fast growing Wind Energy market.  Earlier this year we began qualification runs for wind energy materials manufactured at our new facility in Tianjin, China.  Both the Colorado and China plants are modeled on Hexcel’s established and highly successful prepreg plant in Neumarkt, Austria, from which we have been supplying wind energy customers in Europe for over 10 years. ”

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Hexcel Corporation is a leading advanced composites company.  It develops, manufactures and markets lightweight, high-performance structural materials, including carbon fibers, reinforcements, prepregs, honeycomb, matrix systems, adhesives and composite structures, used in commercial aerospace, space and defense and industrial applications such as wind turbine blades.

Contacts 
 
Media:
Michael W. Bacal
203-352 6826
michael.bacal@hexcel.com

Marketing Communications:
Rachel Woolerton
+44 1223 838370
Rachel.woolerton@hexcel.com