Siemens Gamesa nixes plans for US offshore wind turbine blade factory
Wind turbine maker Siemens Gamesa has cancelled its plans for an offshore wind turbine blade factory in the US.
Siemens Gamesa did not provide many details regarding the cancellation and claimed that it had called off the construction of the factory due to its inability to meet development milestones.
The proposed $200 million factory was supposed to be built at the Port of Virginia in Portsmouth and create over 300 jobs. This was also supposed to help Virginia create an offshore wind hub in the state.
This is another offshore wind or offshore wind-related project in the US that was cancelled in a short period of time. Although Siemens did not provide a clear reason for the cancellation, others cited supply chain problems and low profitability, among other things.
For example, Danish renewable energy developer Ørsted announced that it would stop the development of its Ocean Wind 1 and 2 projects offshore New Jersey some two weeks ago while Avangrid, Iberdrola’s subsidiary, cancelled a long-term power purchase agreement for its Park City Wind offshore wind project off Massachusetts.
Recently, US authorities approved the development of Dominion Energy’s 2.6 GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project – the largest approved offshore wind project in the US so far.
Its supplier of offshore turbines for the project is Siemens Gamesa but, according to US media reports, those will be provided by the company’s European facilities meaning that the cancellation of the factory would not have any impact on the project.
