Siemens, ABP to invest $511 mn in wind turbine factories in Britain

German engineering and electronics giant Siemens AG and the UK's Associated British Ports (ABP) will invest £310 million ($511 million) in wind turbine factories in Britain.

Siemens will invest £160 million in wind turbine production and installation facilities in Yorkshire - doubling its previous plans of investing £80 million.

The revised plan will be spread across two sites comprising the previously announced Green Port Hull project construction, assembly and service facility and a new rotor blade manufacturing facility in East Riding. 

Siemens is investing £160 million across the two locations and its port partner ABP will invest a further £150 million in the Green Port Hull development.

The investment will provide a huge boost to the UK's offshore wind industry and create up to 1,000 jobs directly, with additional jobs created indirectly in the supply chain during construction.

The Green Port Hull project has been in the making for around four years and has come about because of the effort from several national and local politicians, business and people within Siemens in the UK, Denmark and Germany, and Associated British Ports. 

The investment is a landmark for the UK offshore wind industry and Siemens will be using for the first time its next generation blade technology (IntegralBlade) SWT-6.0-154 6 megawatt (MW) wind turbine.

Each rotor blade is 75 mts long and when rotating covers an area the size of two and a half football pitches.

''Our decision to construct a production facility for offshore wind turbines in England is part of our global strategy: we invest in markets with reliable conditions that can ensure that factories can work to capacity,'' said, Michael Suess, member of the managing board of Siemens AG and CEO of the Energy Sector.

''The British energy policy creates a favourable framework for the expansion of offshore wind energy. In particular, it recognizes the potential of offshore wind energy within the overall portfolio of energy production,'' he added.

The offshore wind market in the UK has high growth rates, with an even greater potential for the future. Wind power capacity has doubled within two years, to roughly 10 gigawatts and by 2020, Britain expects 14 gigawatts capacity to be installed offshore.