Green dream runs low on power

The closure of a turbine plant on the Isle of Wight is symbolic of a dangerously becalmed renewables sector. By Terry Macalister

Terry Macalister
The Observer, Sunday 19 July 2009
It was barely 18 months ago that council leaders on the Isle of Wight announced they had drawn up plans to become the world's first "eco-island", to be powered entirely by renewable energy.
The small island would become self-sufficient and even an exporter of low-carbon power, local politicians boasted. They pointed out that it was already home to Vestas Blades, the UK subsidiary of the largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world.
But Vestas's totemic manufacturing plant at Newport is set to close at the end of this month with the loss of 600 jobs, puncturing the Isle of Wight's green dream and raising serious questions about last week's promises from the government that the wider green revolution will create 1.2 million jobs in the low carbon sector by 2020.
Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, argued in last Wednesday's renewable energy strategy presentation that employment opportunities would soar as Britain geared up its wind and renewables sector to provide 30% of all electricity within 10 years.
"Tackling climate change is about more than just averting environmental disaster. It can create a better kind of society and a stronger and more sustainable economy," he said.
His department is targeting not only offshore wind but also a range of other sectors including the nuclear supply chain, low-carbon chemicals and a range of goods and services around carbon trading. The City of London already holds a global leadership position as a carbon trading centre but its dominance is expected to come under threat from New York and Chicago as the US adopts a "cap and trade" scheme.
Opportunities for green jobs in the automotive sector will be highlighted tomorrow when Nissan unveils a line of cleaner vehicles. Toyota has also revealed plans to construct a range of hybrid petrol-electric cars at its plant in Derbyshire, but these initiatives constitute a "transfer" of jobs to the low-carbon sector rather than a net increase in employment.
The Carbon Trust, an independent agency established by the government to further the green agenda, argues that Britain is well placed to become a global leader in both offshore wind and wave power. But efforts to capitalise on opportunities in the wind power industry have been very slow - so slow that Vestas could no longer wait for orders to arrive.
The UK currently produces only 5% of its electricity from renewables, one of the lowest rates in Europe, but even the 2,300 turbines erected onshore so far - plus 200 more offshore - have brought relatively little work to Britain. Almost all those turbine orders have gone to Denmark and Germany, while the demise of the Vestas plant in the UK follows the earlier financial collapse of a turbine plant on the Mull of Kintyre.
Vestas has declined to comment on its problems but the British Wind Energy Association says local suppliers "missed the bus" during the onshore turbine boom because industry progress was so uneven and unpredictable - due to planning and other delays - that few saw it as a steady source of business that was worth catering for.
"We estimate that there are 5,000 people in Britain employed in the wind industry, which compares with 20,000 in Denmark, 30,000 in Spain and 80,000 in Germany," says Charles Anglin, an official at the BWEA. But he is confident that measures taken by Miliband to speed up the planning, grid connections and subsidy regime now offer a real opportunity for change.
"We do believe we could create 60,000 jobs within 10 years as round three [of offshore wind licensing] means up to 25,000 megawatts of new capacity could be brought onstream, representing around £75bn of new investment, if you include grid connections," he says.
An American company, Clipper Windpower, is already developing the world's largest turbine at a facility in Blyth, Northumberland, that will be used in the North Sea. If successful, Clipper could develop a manufacturing plant there.
The Confederation of British Industry is also convinced that the UK really does have "big opportunities" to create green jobs in future. It is spending the summer trying to work out how many jobs might be transferred from "smokestack" sectors in decline, such as the North Sea oil and gas industry.
But Neil Bentley, director of business environment at the CBI, notes that 4% of low-carbon investment in 2008 went to Britain, compared with 34% to the US. He says: "If we want sovereign wealth funds, private equity and even pension funds to put their money here and create jobs, we must tackle barriers to investment such as [wind project] planning delays."
Miliband has said very clearly that Britain is open for green business, but the Isle of Wight has discovered to its cost that actions, not words, make turbines turn.