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As the workforce at the only wind-turbine factory in Britain was laid off at the end of April, Rene Umlauft, boss of the renewable-energy division of Siemens, the industrial giant, was enjoying a run of turbine sales. He had sold more than 120 in Britain, Turkey and at home in Germany.
The Vestas factory on the Isle of Wight was closed by its Danish owner — in the face of an occupation by some of its workforce — because of a lack of orders in Britain. Yet Umlauft has managed to sign a €450m (£407m) deal for 88 wind turbines — part of the Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm development off the Norfolk coast — and followed it with an announcement in May that Siemens was spending €60m on a production facility in Shanghai that would create 400 jobs. In June, Umlauft sealed a deal to build a solar park near Rome to supply electricity to 1,200 homes.
The Vestas saga is testament to Britain’s failure to gain even a toehold in the boom for the renewable-energy industry. It has been left to the Germans to dominate the world market and create at home an entire industry almost from scratch.
The passing of a renewable-energy law in 2000 galvanised the industry. As a result, Germany has cornered 18% of the renewable-energy market, leaving America in second place. Germany’s share is equal to the combined market share of Britain (with a meagre 4%), France and Italy.
The Germans are determined to defend this dominance in the face of growing competition from Asia, particularly China, and America. So much so that Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, the German economics minister, has turned his back on the glories of the smoke-stack years.
“Nostalgia does not deserve a place in our industrial policies,” said Guttenberg.
He binned his ministry’s economic strategy paper and told his mandarins to stop living in the past. Guttenberg is aware the Germans are in front partly by default. The British government ended years of dithering only with the publication of its Renewable Energy Strategy in July.
“As a nation we are guilty of coming up with the best ideas and then dropping the ball at the critical moment,” said Philip Wolfe, director of the Renewable Energy Association. “In the 1980s we were in a strong position but then carried on tinkering with the technology while the Danes and the Germans stimulated their home markets.”
Source: Times Online
