North East Future Location of Next Generation Wind Turbines

California energy giant Clipper Windpower is to invest resources in the North East UK to build a new generation of offshore wind turbines.  The investment will create around 25 skilled engineering jobs and increase the area’s growing reputation in the renewables and offshore sector.
UK Business and Enterprise Secretary John Hutton, visiting the company’s headquarters in California, claimed the investment as evidence that “the UK is fast becoming a magnet for renewable energy investment”.
The project is an output of two year’s worth of work between partners Clipper Windpower, One NorthEast, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and UK Trade and Investment to bring the project to the region and identify supply chain development.
Hutton went on to add that a recent report from Ernst & Young demonstrated that Britain was becoming increasingly attractive to this type of investment as it had moved from fifth to second on the report’s list.  He added that by 2015 he expected to see a threefold increase in green energy feeding into the grid.
Clipper Windpower will use the New and Renewable Energy Centre’s (NaREC) world-leading blade test and manufacturing facilities to engineer, construct and test a prototype 7.5 MW offshore turbine.  It will be the largest offshore turbine in the world. A single 7.5 MW turbine could potentially power more than 5,500 homes and offset more than 32 million tonnes of CO2.

www.clipperwind.com