UTC breezes in to secure Clipper's future

US engineering giant United Technology Corporation (UTC) has bought its way into the booming global wind energy market for the first time, shelling out £126m today to acquire a 49.5 per cent stake in Clipper Windpower, the company behind the high profile Britannia Project to build the world's largest wind turbine.

The deal effectively secures the short term future of Clipper, which laid off 90 staff earlier this year and had been seeking a financial backer after reporting that rising sales were offset during the first half of this year by a net loss of $120.2m.

The company was recently awarded a £4.4m grant by the British government to help fund the development of a new blade construction plant in the north east, but it had been continuing to search for fresh funding to drive forward its plans to build giant 10MW capacity offshore wind turbines.

Under the terms of the deal, UTC will pay £166m to purchase a combination of 84.3 million newly issued shares and 21.8 million shares from existing shareowners. Shares in Clipper climbed 20 per cent on the news this morning.

Clipper chief executive, Douglas Pertz, said that UTC's deal would significantly strengthen the company's position. "Our relationship with UTC will enable Clipper to access UTC's support and expertise in areas of manufacturing, product quality and other industrial processes, while providing Clipper with equity financing to deliver our longer-term strategic goals," he said. " Following this transaction, we believe there is a tremendous opportunity for Clipper to grow its market share and take its world-class technology to new markets."

The deal also further underlines UTC's commitment to the fast expanding clean tech sector. The company is one of the world's leading producers of fuel cell technology and is also working on the development of biofuels and more efficient jet engines through its Pratt & Witney aviation subsidiary. However, the acquisition of a stake in Clipper marks its first move into the wind power market.

In related news, one of UTC's arch rivals, US engineering powerhouse General Electric (GE) today announced that it had secured a $1.4bn contract to supply turbines to an Oregon wind farm being hailed as the world's largest.

GE has inked a deal with wind farm developer Caithness Energy to supply 338 wind turbines and support services to its planned 845MW Shepherds Flat project.

The company said that the turbines will be installed over a 30 square kilometre area between 2011 and 2012 and when completed the site will be the world's largest onshore wind farm. It is expected to provide clean energy to an estimated 235,000 homes, and Caithness Energy said that it already had three 20 year power purchase agreements in place with Southern California Edison.