Sep. 29--Renewable energy is responsible for employing thousands in Colorado -- from the government scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, to the hundreds that Danish wind giant Vestas is hiring in Windsor, Brighton and, soon, Pueblo, to the workers who erect and maintain the massive windmills dotting the eastern plains.

Colorado would like to become the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy. So far, however, Colorado Springs is coming up dry when it comes to developing renewable energy jobs and investment.

"What could Colorado Springs do to become a hub of renewable energy?" asked Don Elliman Jr., director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade. "That's a good question and I don't have a particularly good answer."

It's not for lack of effort, Springs officials say. Yet, they've been stymied in their pursuit of renewable energy jobs, which in recent months have gone to cities that offered millions of dollars in incentives or were deemed to have more strategic locations, such as near rail lines.

"We haven't snared anybody yet," acknowledged David White, marketing vice president for the Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp.

But, he added, "there's a window of opportunity. Right now, a lot of companies are in the site selection mode. We're trying to jump on that bandwagon."

At stake for Colorado Springs and other communities: Good-paying jobs in manufacturing and research and development and hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment by an industry that's barely tapped its growth potential. In today's high-stakes world of economic development, wind, solar and other renewable energy companies are being aggressively pursued in the same way computer chipmakers and other high-tech firms were courted 20 years ago.

And for a community such as Colorado Springs, which has lost thousands of high-tech jobs, the allure of renewable energy has made it one of the Economic Development Corp.'s top three targeted industries, along with biosciences and sports and outdoor fitness.

Yet Colorado Springs wasn't even in the running for some of the most recent renewable energy splashes, White said.

Last month, Vestas announced it will build a $240 million wind turbine tower manufacturing plant that will bring more than 450 jobs to Pueblo -- but Colorado Springs lacks the access to railroads that Pueblo has, White said. It was the same for Vestas' blade plant in Windsor and its blade and nacelle plants in Brighton. Railroads are critical to transporting the very large, heavy wind-generation products.

What's more, Pueblo offered Vestas $11.8 million in incentives, plus another $2 million from the state.

New Mexico, meanwhile, offered as much as $130 million in incentives to land what could eventually be a $500 million investment in solar energy manufacturing by German energy company Schott AG that could employ as many as 1,500 people in Albuquerque.

Incentives aren't necessarily at the top of the list for renewable energy companies, said David Hiller, executive director of the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory, a research collaboration of NREL, the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado State University in Fort Collins and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Instead, companies typically are focused on the quality of a community's workforce and its quality of life, among other factors, when they decide to locate in a particular area, he said.

Yet while those factors help get a community on a company's short list, incentives can often be the tie-breaker, said Springs EDC President Mike Kazmierski. In the case of renewable energy as the next hot industry, incentives are proving to be a significant lure.

Springs officials thought they'd be competitive on the Schott project -- until they learned what New Mexico offered, Kazmierski said.

"This is an industry that's highly sought after," he said. "If you're a pig slaughterer, you're not going to get incentives. But if you're the latest trend in job creation, renewable energy, you've got states fighting over you."

So what will it take for Colorado Springs to start landing these plants and jobs? Besides the cash that some companies want, brains and leadership are necessary ingredients, experts said.

The area between Denver and Fort Collins gets a major boost from the "research triangle" created by the NREL and Colorado School of Mines, CU and CSU.