Areva Picks Scotland for Offshore Turbine Plant

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) -- Scotland is celebrating another offshore wind energy win this week following a decision by French engineering firm Areva SA (EPA:CEI) (Paris, France) to locate its new manufacturing plant for wind turbines in east Scotland.

On a recent trip to Paris, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by Scottish First Minister's, Areva Group and Scottish Enterprise. A location has yet to be finalised in east Scotland but the new plant will be designed to build the company's 5-megawatt (MW) offshore wind turbines and blades for projects in France, the U.K. and Belgium. Areva said the location would be best placed for the growing number of U.K. offshore projects and "benefit from a growing cluster of offshore supply chain businesses in the area".

"Today's announcement provides a further boost to Scotland's position as one of Europe's key locations for offshore wind and takes us another significant step further in achieving our ambitious carbon reduction target," said First Minister Alex Salmond. "The manufacturing of nacelles and blades for these turbines in Scotland will deliver nationwide economic benefits as well as much welcome inward investment to the chosen location once that has been agreed."

Areva's decision could lead to the creation of up to 750 jobs.

Luc Oursel, CEO of Areva, said: "Scotland is known to be a pioneer in renewables and its commitment to offshore wind in particular was a key part of our decision to locate our future U.K. manufacturing base there. This new facility is part of Areva's strategy to establish a manufacturing footprint that will cover the European market."

Areva's other two planned manufacturing locations will be located in Germany (Bremerhaven) and France (Le Havre).

The announcement has been welcomed by the U.K's renewables industry body, RenewableUK.

"Factories like those planned by Areva will provide the jobs of the future," explained Maria McCaffery, RenewableUK Chief Executive. "Britain's offshore wind industry is on the threshold of delivering thousands of manufacturing jobs at a time when the country needs them most. The announcement by Areva is the latest in a series of commitments by big companies. It's now time for the U.K. Government to nail its colours to the mast and make sure these planned investments come to fruition. We need to put the recent political spats over energy policy behind us and focus on what we need most -- jobs, investment and securing a way of generating clean energy on an unprecedented scale".

The U.K. is attracting commitments from a large number of major turbine makers looking to build manufacturing plants in the country in order to take advantage of the coming offshore wind boom. These include Siemens' (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany) which is planning a nacelle production facility at the Port of Hull in England and Spanish firm, Gamesa Corporation S.A. (MCE:GAM) (Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain), which announced in May that it intends to establish its new global manufacturing operation for turbines, blades and nacelles at the Port of Leith in Edinburgh. For additional information, see March 28, 2012, article - Gamesa Picks Scotland for Global Wind Turbine Plant.

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