http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8206615.stm
BBC News Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Profits fall at protest-hit firm
Vestas says many customers are unable to fund turbine projects
Protest-hit Danish wind turbine firm Vestas has seen profits fall on the back of job cuts and falling orders.
Workers had staged a sit-in protest at its site in the Isle of Wight this summer, as Vestas closed its factory
there with the loss of 425 jobs.
The firm, which also axed 1,142 jobs in Denmark, said net income dropped 34% to 43m euros ($60.8m; £37m) in the second quarter from the same period last year.
Vestas also said that it shipped 618 turbines, 12% fewer than last year.
But the firm did see its revenue increase by 11% to 1.2bn euros.
“Since the autumn of 2008, the credit crisis has impacted the wind power industry, causing limited order intake during the past nine months,” Vestas said.
“Many customers have been unable to finance scheduled projects either due to increasing funding costs or an actual lack of funding.”
The company maintained that it expected revenue to rise this year by 20% to 7.2bn euros.
And it said it was expanding heavily in China and the US because those markets were among the fastest growing.
Senior vice president Peter Wenzel-Kruse told the BBC that the protest at the Isle of Wight was a “very sad episode.”
“When we see a strong, stable onshore market in the UK we will definitely reconsider going back,” he said.
But he blamed the attitude of the general public for the company’s lack of progress in the UK.
“The ‘nimbys’ need to be more open [minded] and acknowledge that wind turbines would be good for the UK.
The government is doing a lot but the final decision makers are the local councils and boroughs.”
———————————————————————-
BBC Radio 4 18th August 2009
“Today” Programme 6am – 9am
Listen again on:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/default.stm
and at 8.45am you can hear that Vestas shares have plummeted by one third in recent months.
The Swedish director of Vestas blamed it on “nimbyism” and said that the opposition to wind turbines was stronger in the UK than anywhere in Europe and beyond. He did not blame the government - just we NIMBYs ! I felt really proud to know that we still have enough fighting spirit in this country to protect our land from those who would wreck it from sheer greed. Unfortunately, we still have to contend with “the enemy within” - i.e. many of our own elected representatives, as well as the unelected ones in Europe !
Our political masters, by forcing the consumer to subsidise the wind folly, are just adding to the millions already threatened with energy poverty due to the credit crunch.
The director of Vestas said that they could not set up a manufacturing base in the UK unless a strong market for onshore wind turbines could be established.
Of course, there was not a mention of offshore wind turbines. The developers know it is far too difficult and risky to build them and that dependable conditions for access for service and repair are about as predictable as the wind itself! The insurance costs are astronomical.
Denmark has reached saturation of onshore wind and the Danes are making it very clear that they’ve had enough. They only tolerate them because they know their huge export market is the main plank in their economy and provides employment for thousands. To this end their country has been sacrificed to about 6.000 wind turbines as a huge shop window to sell their wares.
As Howard Hayden, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Connecticut, wrote in 2001 :-
“In recent years, the little country Denmark has gained a certain amount of fame with its wind turbines.
No, they don’t get much electricity from them. They sell them to suckers.”
So, NIMBYs unite and keep up the fight!
Join the NIABYs - Not In Anyone’s Back Yard !
And Google :- “VESTAS Swedish director Hansen Isle of Wight” :-
To read a very different story just one year ago !
Angela Kelly
Countryside Guardian
