Vestas expects 25% wind turbine boost next year

Obama election has helped renewables but Danish firm holding back recruitment due to economic turmoil
Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 6 2008 13.41 GMT

Danish-built Vestas turbines at Tararua, New Zealand. Photograph: Mark Mitchell/Reuters
Vestas, the world's biggest wind turbine maker, is slowing down staff recruitment in the light of economic uncertainty but still expects to increase sales by more than 25% next year.
The Danish company said its third-quarter earnings rose from €102m (£130m) to €160m, slightly below City forecasts. It was on track for sales of €5.7bn for 2008 and €7.2bn for 2009.
Ditlev Engel, chief executive, said the election of Barack Obama was promising for green energy growth in America and global investment would increase its capital spend to €1.2bn next year.
Planned expansion of staff would be slightly reined in for the short term. "We are going to be holding back a little bit until we see how the (global) financial problems affect the wider picture," said Engel He said employee numbers had risen by 5,000 to 20,000 this year.
There has been a surge in demand for renewable energy due to fears about oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions but Vestas shares, like other renewable stocks, have lost nearly 60% of their value since the end of August on fears the financial crisis and lower oil prices would cut growth.
Engel shrugged off the slump in crude values to little over $60 a barrel. He said it was clear that the long-term direction of a finite energy resource was upwards.
"You have to take the long-term view because there is so much volatility around. When we presented the second quarter results, oil prices were at over $140 per barrel," he said.
Governments were increasingly taking action to encourage the growth of clean power sources such as wind and solar. Vestas said it was greatly encouraged by Obama's success and said he needed to introduce plans that would give long-term certainty to renewables.
Engel said he was also encouraged by policy statements from Gordon Brown, the prime minister, and Vestas was scaling up operations in the Isle of Wight, a centre of research and development.
Shares in the company rose 1.2% on the Copenhagen stockmarket, having already risen strongly over the past 48 hours with political developments in the US.
Jacob Pedersen, analyst with Denmark's Sydbank, said: "The share price has halved over the last few months because of worry that people will simply stop buying turbines because of the crisis, and those are worries, I think, the results have put to shame."