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.
“We are looking at two locations [for factories] in the UK, one in Denmark and one in Germany. Great Britain has the advantage of Round 3, which could result in a huge market” reported the Guardian.
The north east and the east of England have been mooted as potential factory locations. These regions are closest to where the majority of Round 3 offshore wind farm search areas are located.
Grants are also being handed out to companies both by the UK government and the European Commission. Last week, the UK government gave Siemens over £1m for the development of an offshore wind power “converter”.
This week, the European Commission announced a budget of €53bn to fund research and new product development from 2007-2013. The cash is expected to deliver new breakthrough technology, new product development programmes and innovation capability for supply chains.
Some areas in the wind energy sector currently available for funding include the development of very large off-shore wind turbines, improving technology reliability, improving the effectiveness of remote maintenance, and the delivery of stable power into the grid.
An Indicative EU budget per project of €5M has been set with a deadline for proposals of 15th of October 2009.
Other related grants being offered are for energy storage systems which include technology improving the integration of variable renewable electricity energy sources such as wind, wave power and photovoltaic’s. Large-scale demonstration of smart electricity distribution networks with distributed generation is also being incentivised.
