Clipper Windpower announces job cuts

Wind-turbine maker Clipper Windpower yesterday warned it would slip to a loss in the second half of the year and announced plans to cut 90 jobs, or about 11 per cent of its workforce, as a result of a slowdown in global wind farm development.

The company also said it expected a 15 percent to 20 per cent fall in 2009 turbine production compared to 2008, though it still estimates it will install 350 turbines this year compared to 324 last year.

"The current economic and credit conditions in global markets, coupled with lower energy prices, are resulting in reduced capital expenditures by the company's customers and delays in the timing of turbine deliveries," Clipper said in a statement.
However, the company said its development of a 7.5MW offshore turbine at Blyth in north-east England was still proceeding, adding that it hoped to complete work at the site by 2012.

The company, which only saw its first full year of production in 2007, said that it would make a loss in the second half of 2008, where some analysts had previosuly expected it to break even.

Clipper is the second major wind turbine manufacturer to downgrade expectations as a result of the economic crisis. Last month, the world's biggest wind turbine manufacturer Vestas said the current economic downturn has left it with 15 per cent excess manufacturing capacity as result of falling demand.

However, supporters of the global wind industry are at pains to point out that the sector is still growign and the current slowdown in new projects is relative to the blistering growth rates recorded in recent years. Figures from the Global Wind Energy Council show that 20 GW of wind power was installed in 2007, a 31 per cent increase over the previous year, and 27GW was installed in 2008, a 36 per cent increase on 2007.

Wind firms' labour forces were prepped for such growth to continue, as Ditlev Engel told the Guardian last month. "Six months ago everyone (in the investment community) said we were not doing enough to meet demand growing at an expected 40 per cent this year," he said. "Now people are saying 'Why have you put in place plans for a 40 per cent increase in capacity when growth levels are only going to be 25 per cent?'"

Last month, Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council, told the World Future Energy Summit that he expected one million people to be employed in the wind industry by 2010.