GE Renewable Energy is building a new manufacturing facility in Teesside that will supply giant blades for the wind turbines of Dogger Bank.
Due to open in 2023, the plant will be operated by GE subsidiary LM Wind Power and will employ up to 750 people directly, with an additional 1,500 jobs being supported indirectly across the region. The factory will manufacture 107m long blades for GE’s Haliade-X, claimed to be the world’s most powerful offshore wind turbine, with a single rotation generating enough energy to power a UK home for two days.
Sea mussels to inspire offshore wind farm solutions
An engineer’s view: over 40 years in offshore wind and infrastructure
“This new plant will contribute to the development of an industrial cluster dedicated to offshore wind in the North East of England,” said Jerôme Pécresse, president and CEO of GE Renewable Energy.
“We are delighted to announce such a commitment for the renewable energy industry, we believe it will help develop a strong talent pool through the hiring and more importantly training of future colleagues. The UK’s target to commission 40GW of offshore wind by 2030 is ambitious and requires that we invest in local production capabilities to accompany this effort.”
Dogger Bank will initially use 190 GE Haliade-X 13MW offshore wind turbines over two sites (A&B) for an installed capacity of 2.47GW. The last phase of the North Sea project, Dogger Bank C, will use GE Haliade 14MW turbines, taking the overall capacity to 3.6GW on completion in 2026 and making it the world’s largest offshore wind farm.
“We’re incredibly proud to say Dogger Bank Wind Farm is the anchor project for the blade facility announcement by GE today,” said Dogger Bank Wind Farm project director, Steve Wilson.
“Dogger Bank Wind Farm is a world-leading development pushing the boundaries of offshore wind development and playing a key role in delivering the ambition to increase UK supply chain capacity and capability. Through our turbine supply order with GE, the Dogger Bank project is the catalyst for this important GE investment in Teesside, harnessing skills and expertise in the local area and delivering long-term benefits in the UK’s offshore wind sector.”
The UK is nowadays a world leader in renewable energy sources but it has always been poor state of affairs that, originally, we had to rely upon foreign expertise for wind technology. Whilst large wind turbines and blades are indeed now made in the UK and the development at Teeside will add another manufacturing outlet, it is foreign-based companies that are providing the employment.
Worrying that GE are now planning to make a fortune out of the UK’s expansion of wind. The UK leads the world in buying-in windmills and erecting them in silly places. So, if we continue to increase our wind generation we will be subsidising Germany, Denmark and now the USA.
None of these companies will help when we have another wind free week: the Germans and USA will offer to sell us CCGT plant as back-up. Hard to believe that just a generation ago the UK led the world in power generation plant and sold many GW round the world, yet now has virtually no capacity to design or supply these. We desperately need the SMR to be kick-started.
Are the Tertiary Institutions in the UK , geared to deliver Sustainable Energy Engineers for the 21st Century ?
Committed engineers will have to take up the baton , in the ebb and flow of knowledge and expertise for the sake of addressing the skill shortfall in the UK .
It does not really matter from where the capacity is drawn on condition that
there are enough skills to advance the progress for the the whole world .