Wind farm boom flies in face of turbine factory shutdown

Ben Webster, Environment Editor
Britain’s countryside and coastline will be dotted with 2,700 new wind turbines by 2012 — more than double the existing total — according to an industry survey of approved wind farms.
The figures contradict claims by Vestas, owner of the country’s only significant wind turbine factory, that demand is too low to justify continuing production.
The Danish company will go to court today to seek a possession order allowing it to evict 18 members of staff who have spent the past ten days barricaded inside offices at the factory at Newport in the Isle of Wight.
They are protesting over the imminent closure of the factory with the loss of 625 jobs. Production ceased last week and the factory is due to close on Friday. Last night, Vestas sacked the 18 men for gross misconduct. They stand to lose up to £10,000 each in redundancy payments.
The supply of current by wind-power must be effected with a minimum of attention if the cost is to be kept below that of a gas engine
Mark Smith, one of the workers, said that the protest would continue until Vestas agreed to resume production or the Government nationalised the factory.
Vestas has repeatedly claimed that it is closing the factory because anti-windfarm groups have destroyed the market for turbines by blocking planning applications. A spokesman said yesterday: “We need a stable market to continue a manufacturing presence, but the market is not there.”
However, a survey by the British Wind Energy Association, of which Vestas is a leading member, found that more than 190 wind farms were either under construction in Britain or due to be built within three years. Work is under way on 737 turbines and another 1,989 have planning permission and will begin generating electricity by 2012. Together, the turbines will generate enough power for five million homes.
At present, there are 2,539 turbines powering two million homes. The current approval rate means that more turbines will be installed in the next three years than were in the previous seventeen.
The Newport factory made blades for the US market but last August, Vestas told workers it was considering making longer blades for British wind farms. In December, it won a contract for 100 turbines for an offshore wind farm in the Thames Estuary. Yet four months later, it gave all 625 workers three months’ notice, claiming that it could no longer justify the cost of converting the factory. All 2,700 new turbines will be made overseas, mainly in Denmark and Germany.
The Government’s The UK Renewable Energy Strategy, published this month, proposes at least 10,000 new turbines by 2020 but is silent about where they would be made.
The Department of Energy offered £6 million to Vestas this week to support a new wind turbine research centre at Newport. Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, awarded £150 million in grants yesterday to several high-tech manufacturers to create or safeguard up to 2,400 jobs.
Bob Crow, the general secretary of the RMT union, said: “There’s a yawning chasm between the Government’s statements on green jobs, energy and manufacturing and the brutal reality of the 625 Vestas workers who are fighting back against a company who will dump them on the scrap heap on Friday if we don’t stop them.”