As of December 31, 2010, Vestas had supplied 1,021 wind turbines to Canada totaling 1,683 megawatts (MW) of installed wind capacity.

The track record continues this month with Vestas receiving a 104 MW order for 58 V90-1.8 MW turbines for a Canadian wind energy project. The project name and details about the customer cannot however be disclosed at this time.

“Vestas is delighted to have been chosen to work with our customer to add an additional 104 megawatts of wind power to the Canadian electricity market,” said Martha Wyrsch, President of Vestas Americas. “This project will help fuel Canada’s economic growth and also help meet their clean energy needs.”

Vestas’ manufacturing facilities in Colorado will produce all of the blades and nacelles for the project.

“The V90-1.8 MW is designed to operate at sites with medium-wind conditions and is built on proven technology to ensure component reliability and durability,” Wyrsch said. “This has led to extremely high energy production from the V90-1.8 MW turbine.”

The company suffered net losses of 119m euros in the second quarter, down from a profit of 43m euros one year ago according to the BBC.

Vestas expects a substantial new wind farm contract in China to help soften the blow of postponed orders in Europe and the US.

Spanish wind turbine manufacturer Gamesa also experienced a drop in share price on Wednesday.

Hans Jörn Rieks, President of Vestas Central Europe said: “Vestas sees Southern Africa – and South Africa in particular – as key emerging markets for us and as leaders in the development of wind energy in Africa…South Africa has made a solid commitment to a clean energy future and we want to build strong and constructive partnerships with customers, government, the energy industry and the sustainable development community to build a sustainable wind industry. We recognise that we have a responsibility not only to our customers, but to the environment around us, to our employees, and to all the communities we operate in.”

At the same time as the office was opened, Vestas commissioned a World Cup wind turbine (V90, 1.8MW) at the city of Port Elizabeth. The green electricity generated by the wind turbine is being given to the Nelson Mandela Bay football stadium in Port Elizabeth by the turbine developer and owner Electrawinds.

Mark Wilding asked planners what they thought of using social media as a tool for planning application consultation and although a note of caution was urged with regard to the ability of these tools to contain detail, most respondents agreed there is great potential to engage people who do not usually get involved with planning issues.  That is, if IT managers would lift restrictions on the use of social network sites (particularly common within local authorities and large companies).

Two examples of social network sites currently dedicated to wind energy are the facebook sites “Yes to Wind Turbines at Spaldington & Holme on Spalding Moor” and “I want a wind farm in my back yard because I’m not an idiot“.

The former is an example of a dedicated project support group set up by the neighbour of two proposed wind farms near Spaldington – the membership is now up to 144.  There are links to the project websites and information about who members can e-mail and write to in order to express their views.  The latter sprung up further to the closure of the Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight and now has over 36,500 members.  This membership reflects numerous public opinion surveys which time after time demonstrate that although not shouting the loudest, the majority of people support wind energy.

Peter Luff MP will tomorrow table a ten minute rule bill asking for an arbritrary 2km buffer zone between wind turbines and homes. This would mean a halt to new wind farms in England which is struggling to meet its renewable energy targets.

Ten minute rule bills are often used by MPs to provoke a debate and although unlikely to be successful- an arbritrary 2 km limit would bring about a collapse in the entire English onshore wind industry. This in turn would also probably cause some damage to the offshore wind energy sector as England is seen increasingly by wind turbine manufacturers (like Vestas on the Isle of Wight) as anti-wind. Attempts to kick off small or community led renewable energy projects would be much harder without the support of a healthy renewables industry.

The reason for such drastic implications is partly due to the remote areas of England being made up of our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Currently commercial wind turbines are not allowed in these areas due to the protective nature of planning policies that apply. Without changing the rules and allowing wind farms in these areas, an unsubstantiated 1.5 mile from house rule will make it even harder or even impossible to meet our national renewable energy targets and makes a farce of our commitment to do something about climate change.

Wind farm applications should be decided on the basis of whether noise levels are quiet enough at nearby houses, in terms of decibels – not a distance limit set to wipe out onshore wind energy.

I have asked many people who live within 1km of a wind farm, from Ardrossan in Scotland to Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire whether they have any problems with regard to noise or vibration from wind turbines, and time after time – the answer is ‘no’.

Most surveys show that people feel that their local wind farm has had a generally positive impact on the area, including a survey commissioned by the Scottish Executive and carried out by Mori in 2003. This survey demonstrated that people are three times as likely to say their wind farm has had a positive impact than a negative impact.

Between 13 and 25 workers are involved in the demonstration at the Vestas factory on the Isle of White which is now into its 9th day. The protest is against the closure of the factory by Danish company Vestas who blame low demand for wind turbines in the UK.

Today, the Danish wind turbine manufacturer’s lawyers sought a possession order from Newport County Court to allow them to appoint bailiffs to remove the workers. However because the proper notices had not been served against the 25 occupiers, the hearing has now been adjourned until Tuesday 4 August. The lawyer acting for Vestas admitted that the company had not served individual notices on those who had locked themselves inside the factory. A crowd of 200 attended the court hearing in support of the protestors.

Vestas had tried to speed up the process of removing the workers, citing in court risks of violence and damage to property. The Judge however dismissed the claim saying “there is no evidence of any threat of violence to property or person by reason of the individuals who are occupying the property remaining there.”

The workers staging the sit in protest have now been issued with dismissal letters from Vestas as their contracts do not allow industrial action.

The Vestas story has been prominent in the UK media with Ed Miliband defending the UK’s attempts to create hundreds of thousands of green collar jobs on BBC2’s Newsnight programme tonight. He told the audience that climate change is much more of a threat to the countryside than wind turbines.

“The countryside is not a non – changing place…there are many untruths about wind power that are being peddled – such as harm to people’s property prices- untrue, sound – untrue, flicker – untrue” said Miliband.

On the programme, Peter Kruse from Vestas blamed the UK’s dire market on the bureaucratic planning process.

Robin Oakley from Greenpeace told Newsnight “this is a market that is booming and delivering jobs and clean energy in other countries. What we are seeing from Vestas is a legacy of lack of previous government action and poor planning approval rates due to local conservative councils opposing wind farms”.