Wind turbine manufacturer GE announced this week that it plans to spend 110m Euros (US$147m) and create up to 2000 green jobs in the UK. The company is to join other wind turbine manufacturers who have recently decided to invest heavily in the UK offshore wind energy market.
GE plans to build an offshore wind turbine manufacturing base in the UK and will also create application and service engineering centres around the country. GE say the investment will follow the successful outcome of the UK governments grid infrastructure competition which is intended to make the roll out of Round 3 UK offshore wind a reality. The company wants to develop a 4 Megawatt capacity wind turbine.
President and CEO of GE International Ferdinando Beccalli-Falco said; “Offshore wind will play a vital role in meeting the growing global demand for cleaner, renewable energy and has a bright future here in Europe…These investments will position us to help develop Europe’s vast, untapped offshore wind resources, while also creating new jobs for both GE and our suppliers.”
Dr. Gordon Edge, RenewableUK Director of Economics and Markets, said:
“Towards the end of 2009 we have started seeing the first signs of a manufacturing rebirth around the UK’s offshore wind energy sector. Now that all Round 3 sites have been taken up and the potential scale of offshore developments stands at over 40 gigawatts, there is a palpable sense of opportunity.
Renewable UK has long maintained that strong and co-ordinated Government support for the UK to become the leading global centre of expertise for offshore wind energy can result in thriving manufacturing clusters and 57,000 jobs by 2020.
The fact that some of the world’s best known companies such as Mitsubishi and General Electric have now decided to invest in the UK and base their offshore operations here shows that such support pays dividends .”
