Gordon Brown bids to secure Siemens wind turbine plant

Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson want Siemens involvement to boost Britain's green revolution after Vestas fiasco
Terry Macalister
The Observer, Sunday 20 September 2009
Gordon Brown is wooing the boss of Europe's largest engineering group in a desperate attempt to secure a major new wind turbine plant and reinvigorate the UK's stuttering "green" energy strategy.
The prime minister will meet Peter Löscher, chief executive of Siemens, in the next two weeks to reassure him that Britain can offer an attractive financial package and genuine market growth.
Last week, the UK government gave Siemens £1.1m to help it develop a new offshore wind power "converter" alongside a £4.5m grant to smaller rival, Clipper Wind Power, which is researching new prototype blades for the North Sea.
But a greater commitment from Siemens is a much larger prize because the company is the world leader in offshore turbine manufacture. Siemens is one of a number of companies, including GE and Mitsubishi, to have been linked with a possible new British wind factory.
Brown and Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, want to bring in a big name in the wake of losing the Vestas plant on the Isle of Wight, a public relations disaster that undermined UK claims to be leading the clean energy revolution.
Siemens confirmed the Löscher meeting, while the head of its wind division made clear that Britain would need to meet various conditions before it was chosen over alternative locations.
René Umlauft, chief executive of Siemens Offshore Wind, said one of the most important aspects was seeing what came out of the Round 3 deep water licensing, which is expected to be announced shortly.
He denied any factory was dependent on Siemens being awarded a licence, for which its financial arm has applied, but it needed to know there would be plenty of new customers.
"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," he explained.
The two factory sites in Britain, include one in the north east – ringfenced as a "low carbon economic area", while a second plant is thought to be in East Anglia.
Umlauf says he has at least 12 months to make up his mind, but insiders said they expected to see a decision much earlier if the company got what it wanted out of government.