Wind turbine firm to inflate city operations

A LEADING international wind turbine manufacturer is set to increase its operations in Edinburgh as it continues to benefit from a boom in renewable energy investment.

German firm REpower, which has its UK headquarters at Coates Crescent, is preparing for a possible steadying off of investment in its home market by instead focusing on its British operations.

And it is looking to the Capital to become a major renewable energies "hub" by setting up a new service centre in the city and recruiting up to 70 new staff. But it has also called on more to be done to help the expansion of the industry.

A service centre providing a base for its Scottish engineers is to be set up in Edinburgh, with the company on the lookout for around 1500 sq ft of office space.

Edinburgh Park is one of the main locations the firm is looking to because of the quality of the office space and links to motorways, the rail network, the airport and tram stops. The firm is set to install its 100th wind turbine in the UK in the coming months and is expecting to install another 100 by the end of 2009.

But REPower UK managing director Henning von Barsewisch admitted that the expansion of the firm and the industry, which employs 2000 people in Scotland, is slowed by a shortage of available skilled staff, opposition to wind farms and the lengthy planning process.

"Getting the right staff is a challenge," he said. "Renewables is not as well known as a good employer with good career prospects as the likes of BAE Systems.

"Wind energy is not seen as providing enough of a career path. But we need to communicate that message that this is a good career.

"Everyone hears negative comments about wind energy, mainly from the same people objecting about it, but the vast majority of people support wind energy."

And Mr von Barsewisch hit out at the planning process for not allowing the renewable industry to contribute to national environmental targets. He said: "It is really bad news how difficult the planning process is and it is such a grind for our customers.

"So many planning applications get rejected for spurious reasons and it can take three years to get a response sometimes.

"If we want to move ahead and become greener and more renewable with less CO2 and other polluting emissions we need to pursue these options. Wind has the most potential for tackling our emissions problem and more help is needed in processing these applications to make a difference."

The company has seen the number of staff it employs in the UK increase from four at the end of its first year in 2004 to 40 at the end of 2007 – with 25 of them based in Edinburgh.

It is planning further expansion in the next three years, a period that it expects to recruit another 70 employees.

Its employees in the city include senior managers, engineers, sales staff and project managers.

"We picked Edinburgh for our UK headquarters because there is a lot of wind turbine potential in Scotland," said Mr von Barsewisch.

"We needed reasonable international access so we looked to Scotland because there are good airports in Edinburgh and Glasgow.