Siemens to build UK wind turbines plant

The Prime Minister signed the MOU with Peter Löscher, President and CEO of Siemens AG, along side Business Secretary Peter Mandelson and Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband.

The agreement follows last week’s Budget where the Chancellor announced £60 million to develop sites close to ports suitable for wind turbine manufacturing, with local firms required as supply chain partners.

The Chancellor also announced a new £2 billion Green Investment Bank which will initially focus in on the offshore wind energy sector.

Last week GE Energy UK also announced the creation of up to 1,900 new clean energy jobs with a planned €110 million investment in the UK offshore wind power sector by 2020 as a direct result of the announcements in the Budget.

Siemens and GE are both responding to a big policy push in Europe in favour of renewable energy. In the UK, leases were recently granted for 32 gigawatts of offshore wind power.

Vestas is the global leader in wind turbines with about a fifth of the market while GE ranks second with 19 per cent and Siemens had 7 per cent last year. More than a dozen smaller manufacturers compete with the big names.

In January this year, Gordon Brown said the offshore wind farm industry could be worth £75 billion and support up to 70,000 jobs by 2020. He said that the Government’s support for offshore wind energy has put the UK ahead of every other country in the world.

www.number10.gov.uk

www.siemens.com