Denmark wind energy industry faces financial problem

"The year 2009 has been a very hard one for the suppliers of the wind farm industry," said Peter Roende Jakobsen, assistant director of Deloitte.

According to Jakobsen, the wind turbines suppliers in Denmark are divided into two groups. One group targets the European wind farm market and the other the rest of the world, mainly in the United States and China.

Last month, Skykon, a major component supplier to the Danish wind turbines firm Vestas, the world’s leading wind power equipment manufacturer,suspended payments to its creditors. As a result, Vestas last week had to cut 3,000 jobs.

"It is unfortunate to see what has happened to Skykon," said Vestas CEO Ditlev Engel.

"Our policy is to have at least two suppliers on each component. So when a supplier has delivery problems, we have to choose another supplier, for example a China’s supplier, to take over," he added.

Last year, Vestas increased its wind energy investment in China to more than 3 billion yuan (about 439 million U.S. dollars).

So far the Danish company has inaugurated several facilities for wind turbine manufacturing in the Tianjin Economic Development Area (TEDA) in north China.

The largest market for Vestas in 2010 is the U.S. market followed by the Chinese market. Last week, Vestas announced that the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in California, the United States, purchased 55 turbines totaling 128 megawatts from the company.

Source: Xinhua, english.peopledaily.com.cn