Vestas: new wind turbine factory will create 2,000 UK jobs

Chief executive says that if UK orders for its offshore turbines are confirmed, Kent factory could be built within a year

James Murray for BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network, and Fiona Harvey
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 August 2011 11.48 BST

Vestas, the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer, has confirmed it could build a factory in the UK within a year as soon as it has secured sufficient orders for its new offshore wind turbine.

Speaking to BusinessGreen, chief executive Ditlev Engel said that having secured the option to develop a new factory at a 70-hectare site at Sheerness in Kent, the company was poised to green light the project as soon as sufficient orders are confirmed for its 7MW V164 turbine.

"We have the manufacturing site ready as long as we get the orders to go ahead and manufacture them," he said, adding that if Vestas does proceed with the factory it will create up to 2,000 jobs and could be completed within a year, allowing the company to begin delivering turbines ahead of the next wave of offshore wind farm construction in 2015.

He also revealed that the company was already talking to a number of its customers about the potential orders and investment that would allow it to move forward with its plans for the Kent facility.

The move could complete a remarkable turnaround for Vestas in the UK, after the company controversially closed a smaller turbine blade factory on the Isle of Wight in 2009. The company has subsequently stepped up investment in a number of research and development centres, including a major new facility on the Isle of Wight. However, the Kent site promises to bring turbine manufacturing for the first time.

Engel also told the Guardian that sales in Asia could be hampered by a lack of available financing and infrastructural issues.

China has been one of the biggest growth regions for wind turbine manufacturers for the past five years, but Engel said that there were problems with grid connections for Chinese wind farms, which are sometimes built without connections and are left stranded for months or even years at a time while the necessary infrastructure is built to catch up. That lack of grid infrastructure has in turn discouraged financing, and Engel said it was a potential brake on growth in the world's biggest market for wind farms, and the biggest generator of wind energy.

Engel's comments came as Vestas released its financial results for the first half of the year, confirming that revenues and profits were in line with expectations as the company continued its recovery following a tough 2010.

First-half revenues rose 31 per cent year on year to €2.47bn, while pre-tax profits reached €8m – a significant improvement on the €219m loss recorded during the first half of 2010.

Engel said the results confirmed that the company's performance had returned to a "normalised level" following a weak first half of 2010.

Significantly, the company reported that it boasted a solid order pipeline with firm and unconditional orders covering almost all the expected revenue of €7bn for 2011.

As a result, the company said it would maintain its outlook for the full year, predicting that it will deliver revenues of €7bn and a pre-tax profit margin of seven per cent.

"In spite of the macro-economic and financial uncertainty, Vestas still expects an intake of firm and unconditional orders of 7,000–8,000MW in a market that remains fiercely competitive," the company said.

Barack Obama bets on next generation of biofuels industry

In the US biofuels industry, corn ethanol is king. But a new $510m plan could give advanced fuels a chance

The evidence against ethanol is clear. Now the White House is betting on the next generation of biofuels.

Barack Obama used a campaign tour through the mid-west to announce he would spend up to $510m (£311m) to help build new refineries which could produce fuel from wood chips, grasses, or corn cobs. "Biofuels are an important part of reducing America's dependence on foreign oil," he said.

What's far from clear, however, is whether biofuels production is the most efficient way to do that, or to move the US towards greener forms of industry.

The biofuels industry has been slow to take off in the US – aside from corn ethanol, of course which has enjoyed 30 years of government support. But in a conference call with reporters, officials said the initiative from the departments of agriculture, energy and the navy could break the long losing streak.

Under the plan, the US government will provide matching funds to private companies building new biofuels refineries, or retrofitting existing plants. None of the funds are new, but have been redirected from other programmes, the officials conceded.

But for once, there is a guaranteed customer for biofuels, and that could make all the difference, the navy secretary, Ray Mabus, said. "The navy can also be the market. We have a big need for biofuels."

The US navy has been working on greening its fleet for several years. The navy wants to power half of its operations by nuclear and renewable energy within a decade.

Mabus argued the navy's efforts to test biofuels on jet fighters and river boats had already helped put biofuels prices within range of conventional fuels. "Prices from suppliers have been coming down very dramatically over the last year or so," he said.

It will be interesting to see whether private companies think the time is now ripe to jump into the market. Campaigners have long argued that corn ethanol's dominance has shut out efforts to develop a next generation of biofuels.

The Environmental Protection Agency had to scale back its targets for cellulosic ethanol, or fuel made from woodchips and inedible parts of plants, from 100m US gallons to just 6.5m US gallons a year – and even that modest target will go unmet.

As an article in Scientific American pointed out this month, biofuels still have a long way to go before competing with gasoline.


Despite the best hopes of scientists, CEOs and government policy makers, hundreds of millions of dollars in government money, more than two dozen US start-ups financed by venture capital and decades of concentrated work, no biofuel that can compete on price and performance with gasoline is yet on the horizon

Tuesday's announcement could be the last best chance, said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity. "One granting programme obviously isn't going to be a game changer in terms of advanced biofuels," he said.

Cutting the $6bn subsidies for corn ethanol would be a far bigger boost. But Livermore added: "It's kind of a reality test to ensure that there is genuine interest and this is not just a government boondoggle. If they don't show interest, it is a real sign that maybe this isn't such a good avenue in the future."

The women bringing solar power to Sierra Leone

An Indian college has trained 12 Sierra Leonean women to become solar engineers as part of a drive to bring electricity to rural communities

A group of 12 women from villages in Sierra Leone is in the frontline of a battle to bring solar-powered electricity to rural communities. No small feat, given that rural Sierra Leone is not connected to power.

The women were all trained at Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, in western India. They are now back in Sierra Leone assembling 1,500 household solar units at a new Barefoot College in Konta Line village, Port Loko district, which is to be formally opened next month. They sit at long wooden tables fitting tiny coloured resisters to circuit boards – heads tilted, deep in concentration, as smoke puffs up from their soldering irons.

The women are all either illiterate or semi-literate – they used to be subsistence farmers, living day-to-day like millions in Sierra Leone. But now they are proud graduates, having travelled 6,000 miles to India to learn – in the women's words – "how to make light from the sun".

"The idea of solar was so surprising that I had to be a part of it," says Mary Dawo from Romakeneh village.

"Snakes, rodents, reptiles and biting insects crept and crawled into our homes with the dark at 7pm. Children couldn't study, and we couldn't relax, socialise or plan our lives after a long day's work," says Fatmata Koroma from Mambioma village.

The Barefoot College in Sierra Leone is the first in Africa. It will enrol up to 50 students on four-month residential courses in solar engineering. The Sierra Leone government has invested about $820,000 in the project. Though the college is funded by the government, the women hope they can run it independently, in what they describe as the "Barefoot way". The solar equipment the college runs on, and the equipment for 10 villages, was provided by the Barefoot College in India, and the initial training was sponsored by the Indian government as part of its south-south co-operation programme.

"In India, the first problem was vegetarian food," says Koroma. "The desert was too hot and everything was different. But, within months we could assemble circuits and construct systems. Anything was possible after that."

The graduates now live in the college hostel, where they will stay until they have trained their replacements "for the service to our villages and our country", says Nancy Kanu. She was in the first female batch of students to train in India, in 2007, the same year that Konta Line village, where she's from, was declared the first solar village. She is now chief solar engineer. "I teach full-time, but I'm on call – even at night – to fix a fuse, change a bulb or charge a phone," she says.

People interact differently now in Konta Line, says Aminata Kargbo. "People socialise more – they're nicer," she says. The advent of solar energy has saved the village about $1,000 in candles and kerosene so far; money that is being kept for the upkeep of solar equipment.

However, the solar units are expensive [$500-$800] and far beyond the reach of most rural households. "There's a 45% import tax … You need electricity to manufacture solar equipment here," says Idriss Kamara of the Safer Future Youth Development Project. The local NGO tackles the country's 60% youth unemployment, training people in vocational skills, including solar. But, Kamara says, few solar trainees find work because hardly any households use it. The government says it is looking to reduce the tax so benefits are passed on to customers and access to solar power increases.

However, while Sierra Leone's government supports the Barefoot College project, people have wider energy needs, says Yvette Stevens of the ministry of energy and water. "We are developing a broader rural energy programme focusing on community, productive and social needs," she says. Renewables such as solar, biofuels and hydro form the basis of this programme, supported by an upcoming World Bank project. "There's a lot of donor money for renewables now, given their impact on climate change," says Stevens. The government envisages local solar systems will provide power for clinics and schools, and for "water pumps, communal television, and computer centres", she explains. Energy is not set out as a separate MDG, but it's vital in meeting them, she says.

Sierra Leone is still catching up after the lost years of the decade-long civil war that wiped out the country's fragile infrastructure. More than 60% of people (about 3.6 million) live rurally. Few can afford generators. Even in urban areas, more than 90% of people go without power.

A recent World Bank report states that electricity is Sierra Leone's most daunting infrastructure challenge. This, despite the new Bumbuna hydropower plant, which has improved the situation in the capital, Freetown, a little during the rainy season, providing nearly half the city's demand. Nevertheless, rural areas lag far behind. Sierra Leone records 46 days of power outages a year, which is four times higher than in other low-income African states.

They may be a small part of a bigger strategy, but Sierra Leone's Barefoot women are thinking about the future. "Once these units are installed, I think we'll need an investor to manufacture solar units here to make them affordable for everyone," Barefoot College graduate Kanu says. "There's nothing we can't learn now to make our lives better. We have the power to change our villages."