Vestas Cancel Plans to Build New Wind Turbine Factory in UK

The UK wind sector has been dealt a blow as Vestas has announced that they will scrap their plans to build a new wind turbine factory in the Port of Sheerness.  The plans to build the large-scale wind turbine manufacturing plant, where Vestas would build their new V164 7MW offshore wind turbine model, were laid last year when they acquired the rights to the necessary land in Kent.

In a joint statement by Vestas and the Port of Sheerness the project was cancelled until further notice due to the lack of concrete orders placed for the new turbine. A Vestas spokesman explained that “such a factory is conditional on concrete orders in our order book and we have not announced any signed orders at this point. We want a good pipeline of orders before we advance further and we do not have that at this point in time.”

However Vestas were also keen to reassure the UK government that they are not giving up on the UK wind power sector, which is due to start installing another wave of offshore wind farms in 2014, using some of the largest wind turbines ever built.

Juan Araluce, chief sales officer at Vestas, said that “Vestas’ strong commitment to the development of both the offshore and onshore wind industries is not affected by this decision. We will remain active across the two markets in the UK as they both continue to show considerable potential.”

With the plans for the new factory side-lined Vestas will now produce their new V164 7MW prototype turbine at its original facility on the Isle of Wight, with the installation scheduled for 2014 in Denmark. Full-scale production of the turbine will not begin until the market has developed, and orders have picked up.

By. James Burgess of Oilprice.com