• 120 staff sent home from Scottish plant without pay
• Scottish parliament had provided £2m in rescue funds
Tim Webb guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 January 2011 18.56 GMT Britain's nascent wind manufacturing industry has suffered a blow after the owner of Scotland's only large turbine plant went into administration.
The plant near Campbeltown, owned by Danish firm Skykon, has been closed and more than 120 staff sent home without pay after Ernst & Young was appointed as administrators this week.
A spokesman for the administrators said several expressions of interest had been received for the business and that staff would be updated next week.
The future of the plant has been uncertain for several years. The Scottish government last year agreed to provide a £9m rescue loan to persuade Skykon to buy it from Danish rival Vestas. But Skykon has been in insolvency proceedings for months in Denmark after a slowdown in wind turbine orders across Europe. Only about £2m of the loan has already been paid. Ernst & Young declined to comment on whether the Scottish government would get that money back.
The prospects of production resuming at the plant are bleak. The number of new wind farms being planned in Europe is falling because governments are withdrawing subsidies to cut budget deficits while energy companies' balance sheets are becoming increasingly strained.
Analysts are forecasting that in Britain this year the industry will see a big drop in orders for offshore turbines and other related equipment.
According to Douglas-Westwood the energy and renewables consultancy, there will be a 93% drop in installations of offshore wind farms in 2013 and some developers are concerned the dip could last several years if big projects planned for the North Sea are delayed. Typically, orders are received two or three years before wind farms are ready for installation.
Citigroup analysts said growth in new wind installations in Europe would be only 1% this year, after a 14% increase in 2010. Globally, the wind industry is still growing, driven by Chinese demand.
Vestas recently announced it was cutting 3,000 jobs, about 13% of its workforce.
Friday, 7 January 2011
Empire State Building to meet electricity needs though wind power
Deal secures more than double the amount of renewable power purchased by any other commercial customer in New York City
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 January 2011 19.20 GMT
The Empire State Building, which has been undergoing a $20m energy saving retrofit, today announced that it would meet all its electricity needs through wind power.
In a two-year deal, the building will buy 55m kilowatt hours worth of renewable energy certificates a year – the equivalent of its annual energy needs – from the Texas-based Green Mountain Energy Company.
That is more than double the amount of renewable power purchased by any other commercial customer in New York City, the announcement said.
It said reductions in carbon emissions from the shift to wind power for the 102-storey building were the equivalent of turning off the lights in nearly every house in New York State for a week.
Tony Malkin, the president of Malkin Holdings, which runs the Empire State, dismissed the idea that he had set out to "green" the building, noting that Green Mountain had come in with the lowest bid to supply power.
"Everything we are doing at the Empire State building is based on the market price, demonstrating you can have efficiency at the same or at lower cost," he said.
The building, constructed in the throes of the Great Depression 80 years ago, reigned for more than 40 years as the tallest building in New York. Following the destruction of the World Trade Centre in the 9/11 attacks, it is again the tallest in the city.
But in recent years, its grandeur had faded, and in 2009 Malkin undertook a $550m renovation project including the energy retrofit.
During the rehab, workers installed smart controls for heating and cooling, and stripped out the building's 6,500 windows to add insulating films.
Some environmental groups have questioned whether renewable energy certificates represent a true reduction in carbon emissions, short of compelling companies to build new wind power plants to meet increased demand.
But Malkin argued there was a strong symbolic value of having the Empire State shift to wind energy.
"There is no way to be certain that the power I paid for actually shows up at my building, but it certainly displaces other power that is not green," he said.
"I am persuading an economic incentive for people to promote more clean power, and I am causing people to think: 'Gee, should I really be investing in the manufacture of non-clean power?'"
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 January 2011 19.20 GMT
The Empire State Building, which has been undergoing a $20m energy saving retrofit, today announced that it would meet all its electricity needs through wind power.
In a two-year deal, the building will buy 55m kilowatt hours worth of renewable energy certificates a year – the equivalent of its annual energy needs – from the Texas-based Green Mountain Energy Company.
That is more than double the amount of renewable power purchased by any other commercial customer in New York City, the announcement said.
It said reductions in carbon emissions from the shift to wind power for the 102-storey building were the equivalent of turning off the lights in nearly every house in New York State for a week.
Tony Malkin, the president of Malkin Holdings, which runs the Empire State, dismissed the idea that he had set out to "green" the building, noting that Green Mountain had come in with the lowest bid to supply power.
"Everything we are doing at the Empire State building is based on the market price, demonstrating you can have efficiency at the same or at lower cost," he said.
The building, constructed in the throes of the Great Depression 80 years ago, reigned for more than 40 years as the tallest building in New York. Following the destruction of the World Trade Centre in the 9/11 attacks, it is again the tallest in the city.
But in recent years, its grandeur had faded, and in 2009 Malkin undertook a $550m renovation project including the energy retrofit.
During the rehab, workers installed smart controls for heating and cooling, and stripped out the building's 6,500 windows to add insulating films.
Some environmental groups have questioned whether renewable energy certificates represent a true reduction in carbon emissions, short of compelling companies to build new wind power plants to meet increased demand.
But Malkin argued there was a strong symbolic value of having the Empire State shift to wind energy.
"There is no way to be certain that the power I paid for actually shows up at my building, but it certainly displaces other power that is not green," he said.
"I am persuading an economic incentive for people to promote more clean power, and I am causing people to think: 'Gee, should I really be investing in the manufacture of non-clean power?'"