A British consultancy has been hired to prospect for European companies willing to build wind turbines or supply parts for them in North Dakota, a state official says. The seven-month, $28,000 contract with Deyton Bell Ltd., of Cambridge, England, is intended to develop business leads for North Dakota officials to follow up, said Shane Goettle, director of the state Department of Commerce.

BISMARCK, N.D. -- A British consultancy has been hired to prospect for European companies willing to build wind turbines or supply parts for them in North Dakota, a state official says.

The seven-month, $28,000 contract with Deyton Bell Ltd., of Cambridge, England, is intended to develop business leads for North Dakota officials to follow up, said Shane Goettle, director of the state Department of Commerce.

"Europe is the heart of wind manufacturing in the world right now," Goettle said. "When you want to fish, you've got to go where the fish are."

Chris Parkhouse, Deyton Bell's managing director, will be the state's principal contact. Parkhouse visited North Dakota last December for briefings on the state's wind energy industry and its general business selling points. The contract ends June 30.

North Dakota already has manufacturers that supply the industry. DMI Industries, of West Fargo, builds towers for wind turbines, while LM Glasfiber, a Danish company, operates a Grand Forks factory that makes turbine blades. DMI Industries is part of Otter Tail Corp. of Fergus Falls, Minn.

Paul Lucy, director of the Commerce Department's economic development division, said it is a logical step for the state to recruit makers of the turbines themselves.

As wind energy development grows in the United States, it makes more sense to make components here than to manufacture them in Europe and ship them to America, Lucy said. North Dakota also has manufacturers capable of making wind-turbine parts if the industry were to expand here, he said.

A European company, Acconia SA of Madrid, Spain, already operates wind power projects in the upper Great Plains. Its largest single wind farm, which is capable of generating 180 megawatts of power, is located in Dickey and McIntosh counties in south-central North Dakota, and McPherson County in South Dakota.

Acconia also owns an 11.8-megawatt wind project near Velva, in north-central North Dakota.

"With the wind development taking place throughout the Great Plains and into Canada, we think it's a pretty easy pitch to put North Dakota at the center of that," Goettle said.

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