News
Vestas' revised timeline for ramping up its Pueblo tower plant remains unchanged by a plan for short-term idling of its existing blade plant in Windsor, a Vestas executive said Tuesday.
Vestas is nearing completion and final testing of its Pueblo tower assembly plant. A limited number of tower sections have been built as part of the ongoing work to ready the plant.
In an announcement this week, Vestas stated it was still going through with previously announced cost-cutting measures, which included further trimming its payrolls by another 2,000 employees worldwide by the end of this year.
“We can’t speculate on how the PTC extension will affect future employment levels at our Colorado factories.”
Vestas' stock shares heading towards its lowest level since the company's IPO - in 1998.
On Tuesday, shares of Vestas fell by 3.2 percent after news of the company's U.S. CEO, Martha Wyrsch, decided to leave the ailing wind turbine manufacturer.
Around 20GW of planned wind farms globally face objections from air traffic controllers because turbines interfere with radars near military bases or airports.
Turbines can reflect radar waves, appearing on radar screens as 'clutter' in an unpredictable and confusing way.
The Windsor plant has also been cited by U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, for numerous violations related to the chemicals and lack of training that contributed to workers' injuries.
According to OSHA records and current and former Vestas employees, some employees exposed to epoxy resin have developed the skin allergy dermatitis, an often painful allergy that causes swollen, red and itchy skin.
The fire, which destroyed the turbine, occurred at the 51MW Gross Eilstorf wind farm in Lower Saxony, Germany. Vestas said it is still inspecting the nacelle via drone aircraft and a crane and modelling possible causes. It has yet to discover the cause.
Steve Bolze, GE's chief executive for power and water, told investors on Thursday that in 2013, the company would have the world's most profitable wind power business, but "we'll just be smaller". ...the company had not built the renewal of the PTC into its plans for next year.
Also filed under [
General]
Wind turbine maker Vestas Wind Systems is more concerned with keeping customers and spreading risk than with retaining its global number-one spot ...Under pressure after a profit warning two weeks ago devastated its stock, Vestas executives sought to allay investor concerns about the competitive threats in an industry where growth has slowed.
The workers, who were sacked last week for their part in the protest, have been staging the sit-in protest for 15 days but Vestas today won a court order to remove them from the Newport factory. ...Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT, said "The court has made its decision but we will continue with our campaign and the right to work on green energy jobs."
Wind power company Vestas Wind Systems made its single largest Colorado job cut Thursday, laying off about 200 workers at a Windsor blade plant.
The cuts represent 29 percent of the plant's workforce.
Vestas Wind Systems lays off 200 workers at its Windsor blade factory
October 11, 2012 by Steve Raabe in The Denver Post
October 11, 2012 by Steve Raabe in The Denver Post
Wind-turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems made its largest Colorado job cut Thursday, laying off about 200 workers at its Windsor blade plant.
The cuts represent 29 percent of the plant's workforce. Vestas also had laid off workers at plants in Brighton and Pueblo.
Vestas Wind Systems to receive incentive money amid worker furloughs
December 9, 2009 by Mark Jaffe in The Denver Post
December 9, 2009 by Mark Jaffe in The Denver Post
Vestas Wind Systems is in line to receive about $6 million in state and local incentives at the plants where it plans furloughs or a hiring freeze, according to state and federal reports.
Copenhagen-based Vestas said Monday it would furlough the 500 workers at its Windsor blade factory in the first half of 2010.
Vestas wind turbine catches fire in Germany, no injuries
March 30, 2012 by Sally Bakewell in Bloomberg News
March 30, 2012 by Sally Bakewell in Bloomberg News
Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS), the world's largest wind-turbine maker, said a V112 3.0-megawatt turbine caught fire today at the Gross Eilstorf wind farm in Lower Saxony, Germany. No injuries were reported.
The cause of the 3 p.m. blaze hasn't been determined ...The turbine, a new model for Vestas, was disconnected from the grid and three nearby V112 turbines were shut for safety reasons, it said.
As bigger turbines are installed across the globe, and more of them, we're certainly going to see bigger - and more - wind-powered failures. Startups are busy working on designs with less moving parts and a higher degree of safety, but some degree of faulty turbines are inevitable. And no amount of research and statistics is nearly as spectacular as 40 seconds of destructive YouTube-fodder.
Also filed under [
Safety]
COPENHAGEN - Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems said on Tuesday it had won its biggest order in the United States with a contract with Horizon Wind Energy, sending its shares higher.
Also filed under [
Technology|
Denmark]
Hundreds of workers at one of the south's flagship companies have today been told they will lose their jobs.
Workers at Vestas, which has plants in Southampton and the Isle of Wight were this morning called into hear the shock news that the company is closing down its operations in the UK.
Vestas' reorg midpoint report card: Sales rising, but shipments declining
February 6, 2013 by Alex Morales in Renewable Energy World
February 6, 2013 by Alex Morales in Renewable Energy World
The wind turbine maker is halfway through a two-year push to cut its workforce by about 30 percent to 16,000 as it seeks to return to profitability following two years of losses. It's reduced its cost base by more than 250 million euros of the target for 400 million euros of cuts by the end of 2013.
Vestas' struggle continues, more layoffs still to come
May 8, 2013 by Sharon Dunn in Greeley Tribune
May 8, 2013 by Sharon Dunn in Greeley Tribune
The struggling Danish company with four manufacturing plants in Colorado -- three of which are in Weld County -- saw a 34 percent decrease in production, a 26 percent decrease in deliveries, a 1 percent reduction in revenue, and a 24 percent decrease in employees since the first of the year, while it continued to come out of a two-year, debilitating slowdown.
Vestas, Gamesa warn of possible faults in older turbines
April 3, 2012 by Alex Morales and Gelu Sulugiuc in Bloomberg News
April 3, 2012 by Alex Morales and Gelu Sulugiuc in Bloomberg News
The flaw will cost customers about 20,000 euros ($26,200) per faulty component, or 27,000 euros per megawatt of installed capacity, Rosenthal said. That's "the equivalent of more than 2 percent of total wind farm capital expenditure at today's prices," he wrote, making an assumption that 30 percent of the components were affected. "We consider this to be meaningful."
Also filed under [
Safety|
Structural Failure]
Vestas: Turbine order won't help Windsor plant
January 12, 2010 by Cathy Proctor in Denver Business Journal
January 12, 2010 by Cathy Proctor in Denver Business Journal
The first-quarter production shutdown at Vestas' wind turbine blade plant in Windsor will continue as planned, the company said Tuesday, despite an order for 18 wind turbines for a Canadian wind farm.