After just two months of operation technical problems have forced the blades of the world's largest offshore wind farm to stop turning. ...The wind farm has not been producing energy since last weekend and Dong Energy, which owns the wind farm, is losing approximately 1.1 million kroner each day the turbines stand still.

Wind turbine blades rip loose near Esbjerg and southwestern Sweden, one landing on a hiking path A malfunction on a Vestas wind turbine in the town of Falkenberg on Sweden's southwest coast could have resulted in tragedy, as one of the structure's large blades flew off and landed on a track used by hikers.

Danish Wind Industry Association managing director Jan Hylleberg said ‘Our surveys show there's a huge desire in the councils to construct more windmills ...however, the energy gained from any new wind turbines would almost be offset by the planned removal of older and malfunctioning ones by 2020.

The Liberal Party wants to cut state funding for land-based wind turbines in favour of financing biogas, hydrogen and solar cell development. Several parties oppose the idea. ...Party group chairman Kristian Thulesen Dahl said consumers had paid huge additional charges on their electric bills for almost three decades, based on an ideological desire to promote the development of wind turbines.

Danish company Vestas Windsystems, the owners of a wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight have fenced off the entrance to the site, where about 25 staff are on the third day of a sit-in. ...The company said the factory was being closed next week due to reduced demand for wind turbines in northern Europe. ... A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said the plant made blades for the US market which were not the right specification for onshore or offshore wind farms in the UK.

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.

The economic crisis has slowed the market for wind turbines and has resulted in Vestas expecting to cut jobs. According to Vestas CEO Ditlev Engel in an initial Q1 report, the company is expected to lay off some 1,900 employees, primarily in Denmark and the United Kingdom.

Danish wind turbines are now producing so much energy that they may have to be stopped at night in order to avoid excess production duties. ..."When prices go negative, wind turbines will probably have equipment installed so that you can reduce production," Marketing Manager Nicolaj Nørgaard Petersen tells Jyllands-Posten.

New figures show the country is lagging behind other European countries when it comes to wind power capacity Denmark risks losing its position as the leading European wind energy nation ...Seventeen percent of Danish electricity is produced by wind power, which is still the highest level in Europe, but Germany is catching up with 10 percent. ...Wind power currently accounts for six percent of the total national energy usage.

Current and former executives at the wind turbine producer's Spanish subsidiary are accused of fraud Wind turbine maker Vestas has been defrauded for around 90 million kroner by employees of its Spanish subsidiary Vestas Eólica, according to a company press release.

Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world's biggest wind-turbine maker, said it uncovered a 90 million kroner ($16 million) fraud at its Spanish unit. Vestas has notified the authorities in Barcelona of the case, which involves current and former employees who made false invoices for nonexistent services, the Randers, Denmark-based company said today in a stock-exchange statement.

LM Glasfiber announces mass lay-offs in Denmark as a result of the on-going financial crisis. Wind turbine blade producer LM Glasfiber has announced that it is to fire one fifth of its Danish workforce in what is being called the biggest domestic firing-round of recent times. ...‘We believe 2009 will be a year with stagnant growth in the windmill market and LM Glasfiber has a clear case of over capacity,' said Rothausen.

The big challenge, wind developers acknowledge, is modifying site permits that restrict the spacing and height of turbines. Neighbors are often put off by the visual impact of the turbines themselves ...Wind developers face an additional hurdle to repower in Denmark, where legislation going into effect next year will require wind-park operators to compensate residents if wind turbines reduce their property values.

Plans to get Britain's first offshore wind farm producing power again after a gap of almost three years have been stalled by a further technical hitch. Rotor blades on the two turbines off Cambois, Northumberland have not turned since March 2006, when the seabed cable connecting them to the mainland snapped.

Parliament approved the construction of Denmark's largest offshore wind turbine park on Tuesday. The wind farm will be placed in the Kattegat strait of the North Sea between Jutland and the island of Anholt by 2012. The turbines will be capable of producing 400 megawatts of energy ...Denmark has 5267 turbines, of which nearly 70 percent are located on Jutland.

An emergency meeting was held at Argyll and Bute Council's headquarters in Lochgilphead yesterday to discuss Friday's shock announcement that the Vestas wind-turbine factory at Machrihanish, near Campbeltown, is to close its manufacturing plant in Kintyre with the loss of 92 jobs. ...A council statement said no representative from Vestas attended the meeting, insisting that any talks had to take place at the company's head office in Denmark.

Vestas has landed a deal with energy giant E.ON worth over one billion kroner, although the company's wind turbines continue to experience construction and maintenance problems. ...Vestas has been the focus of less positive news recently, as several of its wind turbine owners have reported serious malfunctions, with a few of the structures having collapsed over the past two weeks.

On February 22 a 600 kW Nordtank wind turbine at Halling in eastern Jutland experienced a so called runwaway event causing its blades to spin out of control. Minutes later the blades collided with the tower and caused the turbine to collapse. In an unrelated event at Vig in Odsherred a Vestas V47 600kW wind turbine lost a blade. In both cases, Vestas assume that human errors in service and maintenance caused the events, but points out that they are in process of finding the accurate causes.

The climate minister will begin an investigation into two separate cases of Vestas wind turbines collapsing within the past week The climate minister, Connie Hedegaard, is calling for an investigation to determine the cause of two violent wind turbine collapses in Denmark in the past week. Both of the windmills were produced by Vestas, and Hedegaard's request to the Energy Board comes after other breakdowns both here and abroad have been reported in the past two months.

Local councils in the country's 28 windiest towns are digging in their heels against a national plan that would cluster the next generation of high-efficiency wind turbines within their borders, Politiken newspaper reports. ...Facing the prospect of asking their residents to accept an average of 35 giant wind turbines, local councillors are already warning national politicians that they are preparing to put up a fight.