Wind Energy Planning

More Wind Turbine Factory Jobs on their Way

Siemens is the latest wind turbine manufacturer to announce plans for a new UK factory. The factory is expected to create 700 new green collar jobs.

Siemens is looking at sites for the plant in the North East and East of England with good harbour access being a fundamental requirement.

3rd Round of UK Offshore Wind Farms Announced

The Crown Estate has today announced the 3rd round of UK offshore wind farms. It comes as no surprise that the big winners are giant consortiums made up of globally operating utilities and companies with offshore experience. The winners will be taking on unprecedented challenges with sites up to 195km offshore and water depths of up to 80 metres.

The largest zones at Doggerbank (9000 Megawatts) and Norfolk (7200 MW) go to consortia giants Forewind and East Anglia Offshore Wind. Forewind is made up of RWE renewables, Scottish and Southern Energy, Statoil and Statkraft. East Anglia Offshore Wind is Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall Vindkraft.

Eddie O’Connor’s Mainstream Renewables and Siemans bagged the 4000 MW Hornsea zone, whilst SeaGreen Wind Energy Ltd equally owned by SSE Renewables and Fluor, won the Firth of Forth Zone.

Eon and Dutch utility Eneco were left with the smaller south of England coast sites off Brighton and the Isle of Wight.

Prime Minister, Gordon Brown MP said: “Our policies in support of offshore wind energy have already put us ahead of every other country in the world. This new round of licences provides a substantial new platform for investing in UK industrial capacity. The offshore wind industry is at the heart of the UK economy’s shift to low carbon and could be worth £75 billion and support up to 70,000 jobs by 2020.”

Floating Wind Turbine Future

It appears that floating wind turbines are set to become a reality in the near future if the signs of a newly emerging supply chain are anything to go by.

The Hywind, a 2.3 megawatt (MW) floating wind turbine made by Siemens, combines technologies from both the wind farm industry and the oil and gas sectors, and was installed in June of this year. It is being tested off the coast of Norway for two years. Since the installation of the turbine new products are starting to emerge which would be dedicated to the technology.

The video below shows a specialist barge which could be used to transport and put into place floating wind turbines. This is but a small indicator of the potentially huge benefits of offshore wind energy when it comes to new business and green collar jobs.

NREL Installs Siemens Wind Turbine

The US energy department DOE has installed a new wind turbine on its premises near Boulder, Colorado.

The Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has commissioned the 2.3 megawatt turbine on its National Technology Center site as part of an R&D project with Siemens.

The wind turbine has been commissioned in order to allow detailed investigations and monitoring – in what has been described as the biggest government-industry research partnership for wind energy generation ever undertaken in the U.S.

UK Back on the Green Energy Investment Track

After the PR disaster of the Vestas factory closure on the Isle of Wight, the UK Prime Minister is looking to reel in another wind turbine manufacturer and step up investment to get the country back on the green manufacturing track.

The Guardian’s Terry Macalister reported yesterday that PM Gordon Brown wants Siemens to open a factory in the UK as soon as possible. The move would provide a renewable energy manufacturing base and green collar jobs. The goverment is desperate to secure economic benefits from its huge potential wind energy market.

According to the Guardian, the prime minister will meet CEO of Siemens, Peter Löscher to provide some certainty and comfort on the delivery of a large scale offshore wind energy market. This lack of confidence in wind energy market growth was what led to the Vestas decision to abandon the UK.

A Siemens offshore wind representative said that the company will be closely watching what comes out of the Crown Estate’s Round 3 offshore wind farm license announcements which are imminent.

Wind Energy Association’s Offshore Ambition

This European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) video has been produced for the European Offshore Wind Conference being held in Stockholm this month.
EWEA say that offshore wind energy has the potential to power Europe 7 times over and that the industry is growing 28% a year. A European wind energy “supergrid” would help create the [...]

US Kick Start Renewable Energy Grants Worth US $500 million

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has today welcomed the announcement by the US government to begin issuing grants for renewable energy projects worth nearly US $500 million.

The Departments of Treasury and Energy made the announcement further to the establishment of a Congress programme with roots in the economic recovery package put together earlier this year. This element of the recovery package aims to boost green energy investment and employment. The grants will be issued in lieu of tax credits of nearly $500 million for 10 wind energy projects in Minnesota, New York, Maine, Pennsylvania Oregon, and Texas.

Wind Turbine Manufacturer Blames Nimbys for Factory Closure

The Vice President of Vestas wind turbines told the UK today that despite having some of the best onshore wind sites on the planet, green energy proposals are being thwarted by Nimbys.

In an interview on BBC’s ‘The Report’, Vestas’ VP Peter Kruse said the UK’s limited wind energy market is a problem for wind turbine manufacturers. Kruse said “Don’t blame London, because your government is doing a lot, but if people do not want turbines locally then you can put as many incentives as you want on the table.”

The Vestas factory on the Isle of White is heading for closure and the company is blaming poor demand for wind turbines, mainly due to local planning problems.

Wind Turbine Workers Stage Protest

Workers at a wind turbine manufacturing plant in the South of England staged a protest this week over plans to close the factory.

The staff at Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of White are being laid off due to the closure of the factory in the Island’s main town of Newport. Banners saying “Jobs worth fighting for” hung outside of the building demonstrating the strength of feeling of both trade unionists and environmentalists. One worker said “this is a factory that should not be closing down, this is a factory making money”.

The Green Collar Job Race

Green collar job is the new phrase being used by politicians all over the world in an attempt to bring hope amidst redundancies and nose diving economies.

In the UK the Treasury expects the economy to shrink by 1.2% with the global economy looking just as gloomy. Where there is gloom however it is human nature to look for opportunity – and politicians are looking at combating climate change as providing the platform for this opportunity.