Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, is to restructure its operations, entailing the loss of 2,335 jobs, as it seeks to reduce its fixed costs by more than Eur150 million from the end of 2012. The job losses, equivalent to about a tenth of its workforce, will result from factory closures and the streamlining of support functions to align capacity with market demand.

The international wind generation components industry has been impacted by overcapacity and falling turbine prices. The consolidation of Vestas’ manufacturing operations is designed to capture cost synergies and reduce capital required for future growth as well as to increase flexibility in case of a prolonged industry slowdown.

In addition to the planned layoffs of 2,335 employees in the coming months, Vestas is also preparing for a potential slowdown in the US in case the present Production Tax Credit (PTC) is not extended. This could result in the lay off of an additional 1,600 employees at plants in the US. The potential savings in this respect will be in addition to the Eur150 million already planned.

County Cork company Windturbines.ie and L-Power, based in Puglia, Italy, have signed a wind turbine supply agreement for the export of reconditioned wind turbines to Italy. Windturbines.ie will source, recondition and adapt the turbines to suit the Italian wind energy market, while L-Power will market, install and service the turbines for the end user. The turbines will be reconditioned and adapted in our 10,000 sq ft premises in Bandon and transported to Italy as new.

Windturbines.ie has been researching the Italian market for over 8 months and has had a number of visits to Italy with L-Power coming to Ireland in return. Windturbines.ie will be exporting turbines in the size range of 55kw up to 500Kw.

L-Power is currently working on over 72 separate projects for grid connection authorization in the Puglia region and down as far as Sicily. It is expected that the agreement will drive the creation of a number of new jobs within the company starting in the next few weeks.

Offshore wind energy capacity increased in the first half year of 2011, with a 4.5% rise in installations compared to the corresponding period of 2010. According to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), 101 new offshore wind turbines, with a total capacity of 348 Megawatt (MW), were connected to the power grids in the UK, Germany and Norway during the first six months of 2011.

Eleven offshore wind farms worth some Eur8.5 billion and with a total capacity of 2,844 MW are currently under construction in European waters. The size of the installed offshore wind turbines averaged 3.4 MW – up from an average of 2.9 MW during the first half of 2010.

“While I see several positive trends for the European offshore wind power industry, we are not home and dry yet. The sector is coming out of the financial crisis but is still facing a potential worsening of the general economic crisis. The number of banks providing capital for offshore wind farm investments is steadily growing, although there is a continued need for attracting an increasing number of large institutional investors to offshore wind farms – presently the largest construction projects going on in Europe,” says Christian Kjaer, chief executive of EWEA.

Several wind farms in Germany and the UK will reach financial close in 2011 and financial institutions will this year provide a record amount of financing to the sector of over Eur3 billion. Between three and five transactions are expected to close during the course of the year. Equity financing, including divestment of stakes in existing projects to initiate new ones, highlights new approaches to financing among developers and power companies following the financial crisis.

At the end of June 2011, there were 1,247 offshore wind turbines fully grid connected with a total capacity of 3,294 MW in 49 wind farms spread between nine European countries.

GE has expanded its Wind Services portfolio in Europe to include Production Based Availability Guarantees (PBA) as an option for new and existing operations and maintenance contracts on all GE 1.5 and 2.5 megawatt series wind turbines. Available later this year, GE’s production guarantees have been designed with the goals of its customers in mind; ensuring that wind turbines are available during the high wind periods, which can be the most profitable for turbine owners.

GE’s installed base of 17,000 wind turbines has been an industry leader in availability over the last several years. In 2010, GE’s North American 1.5 megawatt wind turbines achieved 98.6% fleet-wide time-based availability, with a global average over 98%. Wind turbine availability is an important measurement of how well a wind farm is operating and is representative of the amount of time a turbine is able to produce power. 

GE’s PBA Guarantee takes into consideration availability, while at the same time balancing peak production on turbines wind farm-wide. While keeping time-based availability high will continue to be important, factoring in key performance trends gives GE’s wind services team a better perspective on how to best operate a site.

In addition, the performance formula employed by GE’s highly-trained technicians allows flexibility to intelligently schedule turbine maintenance. GE can tailor site services, such as routine maintenance, troubleshooting, and repair, based on owner/operator profitability goals.

Stuart Young Consulting, with support from the John Muir Trust, has released a report studying the ability of wind power to make a significant contribution to the UK’s energy supply. It concludes that the average power output of wind turbines across Scotland is well below the rates often claimed by industry and government.

Indeed, says the report, for numerous extended periods of time all the wind turbines in Scotland linked to the National Grid muster less than 20MW of energy – that is enough power for a mere 6,667 households to boil their kettles for a cup of tea.

Helen McDade, head of policy at the John Muir Trust, the UK wild land conservation charity, says: “This report is a real eye opener for anyone who’s been wondering just how much power Scotland is getting from the fleet of wind turbines that have taken over many of our most beautiful mountains and hillsides. The answer appears to be not enough, and much less than is routinely claimed.”

Stuart Young, author of the report, comments: “Over the two-year period studied in this report, the metered wind farms in the UK consistently generated far less energy than wind proponents claim is typical. The intermittent nature of wind also gives rise to low wind coinciding with high energy demand. Sadly, wind power is not what it’s cracked up to be and cannot contribute greatly to energy security in the UK.”

He adds: “It was a surprise to find out just how disappointingly wind turbines perform in a supposedly wind-ridden country like Scotland. Based on the data, for one third of the time wind output is less than 10% of capacity, compared to the 30% that is commonly claimed.”

Onshore wind energy alone can provide up to 65% of Germany’s electricity requirements, according to a new study published by the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology (IWES) on behalf of the German Wind Energy Association (BWE).

With just 2% of land area in Germany available for wind power production, Fraunhofer calculated that with current technology, 198 GW could be installed (as compared with the current installed capacity of 27.2 GW at the end of 2010), yielding 390 TWh/year.

“Based on a current national electricity demand of around 600 TWh per year, onshore wind power alone could cover 65% of Germany’s power requirements. This shows that renewable energy technologies can easily replace nuclear power, with Germany’s wind power potential alone being substantially higher than the share of nuclear power in the country’s current energy mix. In 2010, nuclear plants only delivered around 140 TWh of power to the German system,” comments BWE’s president Hermann Albers.

Looking at the various German Federal states, the study shows that the wind power potential is largest in those states with the least development to date, such as Bavaria, where 80 TWh could be produced annually, and Baden-Wuerttemberg, which could generate 45 TWh. At the moment, this potential is largely untapped.

The study assumes the installation of wind turbines of a rated power of 3 MW, and hub heights of 100-150 meters, reaching an average production of 2,000 full load hours per year.

Belfast Harbour and DONG Energy, a world leader in offshore wind farms, are combining to establish a new hub for the burgeoning offshore wind energy sector. As part of the project, Belfast Harbour is to fund and build a new £40m, 450m quay and 50-acre logistics space on the County Down side of the Harbour.

The project would create up to 300 full time jobs and 150 construction posts. If a final agreement is signed, DONG Energy will use the facility to pre-assemble both the turbines and their foundations. The scheme represents one of the Harbour’s largest ever capital investment projects.

Peter Gedbjerg, DONG Energy vice president and UK country manager, power, says: “We hope to achieve a long and fruitful relationship with Belfast Harbour. The possibility of a tailor-made facility to make the installation of offshore wind turbines even more efficient fits perfectly with DONG Energy’s goal of bringing down the construction cost of renewable energy.”

Over the next 20 years it is expected that 11,000 new offshore wind turbines will be built in UK and Irish territorial waters at a cost of about £100 billion. With almost a quarter of the planned turbines located within 150 nautical miles of Belfast, the Harbour area is well placed to become a major centre in the rapidly expanding offshore wind sector.

The Crown Estate, which manages licences for UK offshore wind farms, has awarded DONG Energy (as part of its Round 2 and 2.5 Licence Rounds), the licence to construct the West of Duddon Sands Offshore Wind Farm together with Scottish Power Renewables, and to further extend the capacity of the Burbo Bank (up to 234 MW) and Walney (up to 750 MW) offshore wind farms in the Irish Sea.

“This initiative, which the Harbour has been pursuing for well over a year, has the potential to kick-start Belfast’s aspirations to become a leading player in the new green economy,” explains Len O’Hagan, chairman of Belfast Harbour. “Belfast Harbour has a long track record of investing in new infrastructure, such as the dry docks and quays which helped make Belfast the ‘shipbuilder to the world’ or the aerodrome which laid the basis for Belfast’s aviation industry. In similar vein, our expectation is that investment in a new offshore wind facility will help establish a new 21st century renewable cluster.”

In addition to turbine assembly operations, there may also be opportunities to attract turbine manufacturers to Northern Ireland, helping to lay the basis of a Marine Energy Park that would create significant numbers of new high-value-add jobs and inward investment.

Belfast is the only port on the island of Ireland with the capacity to undertake a turnkey investment of this scale in the timescales required. DONG Energy has built five of the world’s ten largest offshore wind farms.

Ten years after the first wind farm was commissioned, the UK is now Europe’s leading offshore wind generator. Currently planned offshore wind projects will generate 32 gigawatts of electricity or one quarter of the UK’s electricity needs.

The planned development of a Marine Energy Park is supported by Belfast Harbour’s long-term land reclamation strategy (the proposed site was initially reclaimed in the 1960s) and will complement the decision by Bombardier, Queen’s University and the University of Ulster to develop the Northern Ireland Advanced Composites and Engineering Centre, also within Belfast Harbour Estate.

GE has signed a ten year contract with Spanish wind developer Cobra Energia to provide advanced services for 178 GE wind turbines installed at eight wind farms across Spain. The agreement is GE’s largest wind energy services contract in Europe, and reinforces the company’s position in Europe’s highly competitive wind turbine services sector.

The agreement provides the flexibility for Cobra Energia to complete routine maintenance with GE contributing advanced solutions for advanced unplanned maintenance, troubleshooting, upgrades and parts. The GE service agreement covers Cobra Energia’s entire fleet of GE 1.5-megawatt wind turbines coming off warranty between 2010 and 2012.

A subsidiary of Spanish building company ACS, Cobra Energia operates some of the largest wind farms in Spain. Spain ranks among the world leaders in the use of renewable energy, including wind and solar.

Energia, a member of the Viridian Group, has achieved financial close for its Eur72 million investment in 51 megawatts of electricity capacity in new wind farms at Crigshane and Church Hill in County Tyrone. The development forms part of Energia’s all-island renewable energy plans.

Energia has completed Eur65 million in non-recourse project financing with Nord/LB and Rabobank, for an 18 year term. Work will commence immediately on these wind farms.

Energia is one of the most significant contributors to the achievement of Ireland’s renewable targets on an all-island basis. The company has contracted for 22 state-of-the-art Enercon E70 2.3 MW wind turbines with substantial civil works contracts awarded to Adman Civil Projects and PT McWilliams.

The Eur65 million financing was structured by Nord/LB who was mandated as Debt Advisor in summer 2008. Based on the strong project fundamentals, Nord/LB underwrote 100% of the financing in spring 2010. Rabobank International joined the financing before financial close as Mandated Lead Arranger.

Energia has now secured Eur115 million in funding for over 100MW of renewable asset development across Ireland and the arrangements are in place for the remaining funding to come from its Irish portfolio financing with RBS, Bank of Ireland and National Australia Bank.

By 2012, Energia plans to be the largest independent renewable off-taker on the island of Ireland with 740MW, around 25% of the Irish renewable market. It currently has long term Power Procurement Agreements (PPAs) in place with 255MW of operating wind farms and other renewables, with a further 485MW scheduled to be operational by 2012.

Energia is Ireland’s leading independent energy supply company with a 25% market share of the business electricity market on an all–island basis with over 65,000 customers. The company also supplies 30% of all gas consumed in Ireland by the country’s business gas users.  In addition to renewable assets, the company operates a 750MW gas fired generating station in north Dublin.

Peter Baillie, managing director Renewables, Energia comments: “We are very pleased with the vote of confidence from leading renewable lenders Nord/LB and Rabobank. We have been working closely with Nord/LB as debt advisor for the last two years to achieve this financing and we strongly recommend their expertise in the renewable sector. The addition of Dutch renewable lender Rabobank is a further vote of confidence in Energia’s renewable expertise. We are delighted to make this step change in our wind farm investment programme.”

SSE Generation, the power generating business of SSE, the second largest electricity generator across the UK and Ireland, has signed a comprehensive and flexible service agreement with GE. The ten years contract covers SSE’s fleet of 127 GE wind turbines in operation across the UK and Ireland.

The new agreement will provide a wide range of technical support services for SSE’s GE wind turbines, allowing SSE the flexibility to customise technical support services on a site by site basis.

“With the expansion of the onshore wind generation fleet we needed new ideas and strategies to manage our fleet while continuing to manage safety, long term integrity and costs,” said Jeremy Williamson, onshore wind generation manager of SSE Generation.  “GE’s solution provides us with an unprecedented level of service flexibility for our fleet of installed GE wind turbines.”  

All of the wind turbines covered under the new service agreement are GE 1.5-megawatt units, the most widely deployed wind turbines in the global wind industry with more than 14,000 installed worldwide. The agreement includes GE’s highly-specialised technology for remote monitoring, trouble shooting, and support as well as routine maintenance. In addition, SSE will benefit from GE’s wind turbine upgrades, parts, and access to state-of-the-art training from GE’s Energy Learning Center.

“Our agreement with SSE Generation demonstrates our ability to allow our customers to customise their preferred level of support, putting us at the forefront of the wind industry,” says Diarmaid Mulholland, wind services general manager for GE’s renewable energy business. “We believe this approach maximizes the resources and the expertise that can be applied toward ensuring the long-term, reliable and profitable operation of our wind turbines.”

SSE owns approximately 10,700 megawatts of electricity generation capacity. This includes 4,500 megawatts of gas and oil fired capacity, 4,000 megawatts of coal fired capacity, and more than 2,200 megawatts of renewable energy capacity.

Scotland’s renewable electricity target for the next decade is being raised from 50% to 80%. First Minister Alex Salmond has confirmed the Scottish Government’s increased national target – now 80% of Scottish electricity consumption to come from renewables by 2020 – ahead of a major international conference – Scottish Low Carbon Investment Conference – next week to help accelerate investment in the growing low carbon economy.

Scotland’s existing target was established in 2007 and, aided by a rapid expansion in wind power, the country is on course to exceed its interim target of 31% in 2011.

The Scottish Government has now calculated that significantly higher levels of renewables could be deployed by 2020 with little change to the current policy, planning or regulation framework in Scotland.

“Scotland is blessed with abundant natural energy sources, particularly in our seas, where Scotland is estimated to have a quarter of Europe’s potential wind and tidal energy capacity and a tenth of its wave resource. We are already on the path to a low carbon economy – Scotland gets nearly a quarter of it electricity from green sources,” Alex Salmond explains. “Scotland is ideally-placed to help lead the renewables revolution and taking account of the levels of planned investment over the next decade, I believe it is now time to aim higher and to go further.”

Recent work by Scottish Enterprise has shown the huge potential for employment in the renewable industry, with up to 28,000 direct jobs being created to service the Scottish, UK and worldwide markets for offshore wind turbines. It has also been estimated that 60,000 new green jobs could be created by 2020 in low carbon industries.

Scotland already has 7 Gigawatts (GW) of renewables capacity installed, under construction or consented around the country. “Given the scale of lease agreements now in place to develop offshore wind, wave and tidal projects over the next decade it is clear that we can well exceed the existing 50% target by 2020,” he points out. “The global imperative to cut emissions, coupled with rapid advances in energy efficiency and production, mean the global economy of 2050 will be vastly different from today’s. However, the next ten years is the decisive decade for determining the shape, scale and pace of the renewable revolution and the transition to a low carbon future.”

Gaelectric, the Irish renewable energy company, has received planning approval for a 11.5 megawatt (MW) wind farm at Cregganconroe, Pomeroy, County Tyrone. The wind farm development will consist of five wind turbines and will be capable of generating energy equivalent to the average annual electricity consumption of approximately 6500 homes.

The Cregganconroe wind farm will require a total investment of approximately Eur22 million, and is just one of a number of projects that Gaelectric currently has in planning in Northern Ireland, which together total approximately 130MW.

“We have been working on planning for a range of sites in Tyrone and Antrim for a number of years. The Cregganconroe approval is a further important step for Gaelectric and represents our second planning success in Northern Ireland this year,” says Brendan McGrath, chief executive of Gaelectric.

Gaelectric has already been granted planning permission to construct a 14 megawatt wind farm at Carn Hill near Knockagh. Work on this project is due to start in mid 2011, with construction expected to take between four and six months to complete.

Gaelectric currently has 25 projects at different stages of development on the island of Ireland. Gaelectric’s first wind farm in Roscommon is expected to be commissioned by year end 2010.