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

The wind turbine company sees the UK offshore wind energy market as growing significantly in the future and says the 3rd round of offshore wind farm licensing by the Crown Estate will create a demand for 32 gigwatts.

Peter Loscher, President and CEO of Siemens AG said:

“With the new wind turbine production plant in the UK we’re pushing ahead with our strategy of investments in attractive growth markets for ecofriendly technology. In the foreseeable future the  wind power market in the UK will be characterized by major offshore projects, and we’ll extend our market leadership with the new production plant”

Siemens is one of the two biggest offshore wind turbine companies alongside Vestas and has already built 11 offshore wind farms, over half of these in the UK.  The company’s turbines also make up the largest onshore wind farm in Europe – Whitelee near Glasgow and Siemens say that around 40% of the wind energy in the UK is generated by their wind turbines.

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 .”

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.”

The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband said: “Our island has one of the best wind energy resources in Europe and today’s news shows we’re creating the right conditions for the energy industry to invest in harnessing it. This is one of the strongest signals yet that the UK is locked irreversibly into a low carbon, energy secure prosperous future.”

The 3rd round of offshore wind development takes engineering and financing challenges to a new level.  Doggerbank is between 125 and 195 kilometres offshore with its outer limit aligned to UK continental shelf limit as defined by the UK Hydrographic Office.  The area involved is equivalent in size to North Yorkshire.

British Wind Energy Association CEO Maria McCaffery said: “Today’s announcement is a major leap forward in realising the potential for clean, green energy production through wind power: it sets the UK apart as the leading offshore wind energy producer not only in Europe but worldwide both in terms of total potential power generation from offshore, and the scale of new green collar employment opportunity”.

“We need to ensure the UK also benefits through a boost in manufacturing, engineering and skills: but this will only happen if additional action is taken by the Government through working actively to create coastal manufacturing hubs.  This will encourage wind energy manufacturing companies to locate in the UK and enable British businesses to take full advantage of the supply chain opportunities for the benefit of jobs and the UK economy as well as Britain’s energy security”.

The announcement confirmed earlier leaked information about which companies had secured the key sites.