Is Vestas planning to lay roots in Ontario?
I have a story in today’s Toronto Star about Vestas and why the world’s largest maker of wind turbines is seriously looking at setting up shop in Ontario. Vestas already has a large manufacturing footprint in Colorado, but its interest in southern Ontario has more to do with the potential North American market for offshore wind. So why Ontario? Because offshore wind in the Great Lakes provides a huge opportunity, and Ontario happens to have the most freshwater offshore real estate, as well as a developer, Trillium Power, that is well ahead of the pack with respect to project development. Also, Ontario is the only jurisdiction in North America to have a feed-in-tariff for offshore wind — the province offers 19 cents per kilowatt-hour of offshore wind power. This makes it easier for Trillium, which has four projects totalling 3,700 megawatts in the pipeline, to pioneer offshore development in the Great Lakes.
Some signs that Vestas wants to come to Ontario? Last fall Vestas Offshore opened an office in Toronto that is serving as its North American headquarters for offshore wind sales. Last week company officials flew in to tour a number of potential sites in Hamilton, Niagara, Kingston and Belleville, among others, as possible sites for manufacturing facilities. The officials, according to sources, were also here to size up the local supply chain and supporting infrastructure. And this morning, Trillium announced that it has chosen Vestas as supplier of up to 740 offshore wind turbines for its four projects.
Laying roots in southern Ontario makes sense for Vestas, which is looking at long term growth. The feed-in-tariff program in Ontario provides certainty that demand will be there for both onshore and offshore projects, plus Ontario can serve as a great launchpad into the U.S. market, where states such as New York, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin also plan to develop in the Great Lakes. Of course, this is potential business on top of planned offshore projects on the east coast. Ontario simply makes more sense as a location for serving those markets.
If Vestas did commit to Ontario, it would be another major win for the province, which last month confirmed a $7 billion deal with a Korean consortium, led by Samsung, which plans to manufacture and develop 2,500 megawatts worth of wind and solar projects in the province.
Tags: Samsung, Trillium Power, Vestas Offshore
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
February 9th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
I hope the province will be responsible in dealing with Vestas, I also hope the province will be generous. The unemployeed trades people from what was once a manufacturing enviroment need work. But not just in Ont but in the neighbouring locations of Michigan and New York. Ontario is wise and needs no luck in getting a deal we just need to face what is required to get this industry before our province is so poor for work with the next opportunity we’ll have to deal away more.
February 9th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Question to ask is WHY was Canadian Energy Minister/Trade Minister in Shenyang China visiting APWR in CHINA ????
http://www.lngkny.com/english/
Congrats to Vestas for this HUGE off shore win wind which shows the feed in tariffs work but the stupid USA cannot figure this out as of yet!
February 10th, 2010 at 7:53 am
Vestas closed its factory (on the Isle of Wight) in the UK last year, at a loss of 600 jobs, saying that the British Government was not doing enough to support the wind industry or make the planning system more wind energy-friendly. The Government does seem to be supporting the solar industry at long last, and certainly at SolarUK there has been increased interest in solar photovoltaics recently as a result of the new Feed-in Tariff which comes into operation in April. Hopefully the Government’s interest in the potential of solar will see it foster a homegrown manufacturing sector: the wind energy sector may generate jobs, but they tend to be overseas ones which isn’t exactly ideal.
February 16th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
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