How faulty wind turbines threaten to bring down a German industrial powerhouse
By Paul Homewood
h/t Paul Kolk
When Siemens announced a deal to merge its wind power business with rival Gamesa in 2017, executives saw only upside.
Then Siemens chief executive Joe Kaeser said there was “a clear and compelling industrial logic” that would make “renewable energy more cost-effective”.
Yet the turbine industry has proved as fickle as the wind.
Siemens warned on Monday that it was facing a €4.5bn (£3.9bn) loss this year as a result of issues within its wind turbine division.
Wrinkles in rotor blades and faulty gears are among the problems uncovered, which have led to operating issues and warranty claims from buyers. Inflation has only added to headaches.
The admissions of failures wiped as much as €6bn off the value of Siemens on Monday.
The German industrial powerhouse has been in the wind power market for almost two decades and Gamesa, which was until last year a joint venture, traces its roots in the industry back to the 1970s.
Yet a rapid expansion of its manufacturing in recent years has left the combined business over-extended.
Jochen Eickholt, chief executive of Siemens Gamesa, admitted: “We sold turbines too quickly,” describing the company as a “victim of our own ambitions”.
Siemens Gamesa manufactures blades for wind turbines, which can measure over 100m in length and are made up of many layers of material.
The technology must be highly precise and testing uncovered flaws causing “abnormal vibrations”, which could lead to damages and other issues.
Jochen Eickholt, chief executive of Siemens Gamesa, has put the issues down to “wrinkles” within layers of the blades and has blamed suppliers. Some have been cut off in response.
Hiccups weren’t picked up earlier because the company was focused on the rapid introduction of new turbines and the ramping up of capacity, Siemens Energy chief executive Christian Bruch said.
Kathryn Porter, an independent analyst at energy consultancy Watt Logic, said: “There’s been pressure from the developers to have bigger turbines, because then obviously it’s easier to build, but there have been a lot of warranty problems.
“Now you’re getting people saying behind the scenes, maybe we need to have a pause on this bigger and bigger turbine thing because they just keep breaking.”
Profitability has been weak in the industry for a long time, she said….
The German company is not alone in struggling: its competitors and its customers are also battling a more expensive landscape for the green energy industry.
Vestas, the world’s biggest wind turbine maker, lost €1.5bn last year after a surge in costs, particularly metal prices.
Chief executive Henrik Andersen said in May: “The wind industry remains challenged by political uncertainty, slow permitting processes and high inflation, which we expect to continue throughout 2023.”
Operators face significant challenges too. Energy giant Vattenfall last month shelved plans for a major wind farm off the coast of Norfolk after soaring inflation made the project unviable.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
“The wind industry remains challenged by… slow permitting processes..”.
I thought that was only meant to affect Nuclear?
AR5 has gone quiet tells you all you need to know about wind farm prices continuing to fall. The net zero evangelists were wetting their pants when the price of gas went through the roof as it provided perfect air cover for allowing the true cost of wind to quietly rise but now its dropped back they will finally get exposed. The people need to decide whether they want to pay for it or not and given even that even govt wont force through the slightly cheaper onshore wind tells you all you need to know. The 50GW 2030 target is just that Boris pipe dream and hopefully now with AR4 stalling and AR5 unachievable then DENZ will pause the whole renewables debacle and stabilise the ship. By all means use the renewables we have but we mustn’t allow any more fossil fuelled generation to be dismantled and include Ratcliffe and teh waste of space Drax but we need baseload and despathable generation and we need to incentivise that to stay on the system now not introduce more renewables. We also need to force any BESS developers to colocate at wind/soalr farms or at the nearby grid connections in future. Ultimately we need CEGB MkII back to take control of centrally planned generation and transmission system not two disparate groups undermining each otehr that we have now.
Project Fortress will have a 700 MWh (465 tons TNT) BESS on its 1000 acre solar subsidy farm at the Graveney grid connection for London Array offshore windmills. We pray that the wind is offshore when that goes up less than 2 miles from Faversham.
Unfortunately sea breezes tend to be onshore during the day…
http://drømstørre.dk/wp-content/wind/miller/windpower%20web/en/tour/wres/localwin.htm
But beware the man who calls himself Milliband. An incoming Labour Govt with him as energy secretary has promised “totally carbon free energy by 2030”. Someone in the media should ask him to explain exactly how this will be achieved, but every time he is interviewed they just nod in agreement with his Alice in Wonderland plans.
Minibrain! His stupidity is only surpassed by his brothers complete lack of morality, thinking it is perfectly normal to take a salary of $750K from a “charity”
But didn’t the brothers Grim get their moral compasses from their parents, committed Marxists?
Ed says Labour’s fourth mission in government will be to make Britain a clean energy superpower.
https://labour.org.uk/missions/making-britain-a-clean-energy-superpower/
“With shovels in the ground and cranes in the sky – powered by the Green Prosperity Plan – a Labour government will help Britain lead the world in cheaper, cleaner power and industry.”
The shovels aren’t carbon free but he seems to have discovered a hitherto unknown energy source, the Green Prosperity Plan.
Nicholas,
Drax is the only one of our ‘renewable’ generation that provides inertia and reactive power lacking from wind and solar. Be thankful for small mercies.
(Yes, I know that hydro does also but we have little of that)
Indeed thats why it has to be retained and the two coal units should be kept.
Ahead of the development curve, government unrealistic deadlines and subsidising unproven technology. Now the design and manufacturing errors are out in the field in much greater numbers than would have occurred in a normal take up. (Not blowing up our coal power stations, but replacing them as they wear out).
Same problem with Battery Electric Vehicles. Expect carbon capture and hydrogen to have exactly the same outcome!
Indeed it was an act of criminal negligence not to mothball some of the coal stations.
+100
I concur. But I would posit this was more than negligence; it was a deliberate move to remove base-load generation so it would have to be replaced by something–like wind and solar and the associated Magic Unicorns. As with all crimes–follow the money.
Correct Nicholas – all successive Govts since Thatcher have failed to enact a proper, long term energy policy like we had pre 80’s – there was always a 25 year energy plan and the coal industry had its own 25 year plan to meet it – it is astounding how intellectually bereft Govts have been since the 80’s putting our national security at great risk with green energy fantasies that are quickly reaching peak stupidity and black out risk
Solar is daylight only, low efficiency and land-hungry, nuclear takes forever to approve (if at all) and build, so what else is there at industrial scale but wind power for climate-obsessed governments and green dreamers?
Just think about the engineering difficulties involved with these larger turbines. 3 blades, 100m long on what is effectively one central bearing perched on top of a 100m+ high pole. When the bottom blade passes in front the tower it goes into a power deadspot but the other 2 blades are in maximum power zone. This is clearly quite dissimilar to any other spinning mechanism. The hub rpm is very slow (but the blade tips are likely travelling close on 200mph) so, apart from the huge gearing up required, the bending forces acting over the length of the blades is bordering on thedestructional.
No small wonder they are failing. Without subsidies to harvest they would never have been created in the real commercial world
It has been clear to all observers that these windmills (they aren’t turbines – a turbine is a fan in a tube, the tube being a critical part) are not reliable. There is always at least one in any group that isn’t working.
There can be little doubt that they will, as a minimum require a major refurbishment programme but more likely need an early second generation replacement programme.
That won’t help cost reduction and probably some big name bankruptcies.
They are made largely from hydrocarbons. The parts not directly made from hydrocarbons require them for acquisition and processing. The result, a pointless but perfect example of all that is wrong with the climate industrial complex and the dark forces behind the farrago of all time
“TURBINE | English meaning – Cambridge Dictionary
a type of machine in which a wheel is driven by the movement of liquid or gas so that power is produced”
A windmill is a milling machine powered by the wind.
Those windmills were designed for milling rate-payer cash; electricity is an afterthought.
It appears the low-hanging fruit of easy picking Green New Deal cash is gone, and reality is setting into the manufacturing arm of the Climate Leviathan. Perhaps the demise of the once great Siemens will be a wake up call, but I doubt it. Their loss will become rate-payer losses, and there is no one in the political ranks to stop this madness. After all, Siemens says this is just “a hiccup.”
Siemens (entire business): ‘Revenue in fiscal 2022 grew 8.2 percent on a comparable basis to €72.0 billion (fiscal 2021: €62.3 billion)’
https://press.siemens.com/global/en/pressrelease/outstanding-performance-fiscal-2022-strong-fourth-quarter-finish
A few billion of wind power losses isn’t curtains.
Revenue isn’t profit.
I agree. Even with the endless warranty claims, that will haunt them until they just “buy them back” for disposal, there are ample reserves. But will their reputation ever recover? Will their shareholders ever trust them again? Could this be their “Bud-Light” moment? Forgive me for rambling. My schadenfreude has loosened my fingers.
The “green” thing ruins everything it infects. Adherents have gone nuts, companies, and customers are blackholing money, and taxpayers (and their grandchildren) pay the costs.
It’s a wonder to see.
Polish a turd and what are you left with?
Westminster outwardly refurbished but inwardly full of the same crap?
I guess we can now see why the windmills business was split off from the main Siemens company . And notwithstanding the design flaws, they are not competitive with the Chinese manufacturers because of Germany’s high energy costs. As each week passes, more German manufacturing shuts up shop and moves away. A major supplier to the automotive industry is closing 2 factories to increase manufacture at sites outside Germany where the cars are now being manufactured. We are not supposed to laugh as Germany sinks but there is footage of Habeck out in India pleading for people to come to Germany to work as the well-educated follow the companies out of Germany, or even ahead of them.
O/T Surprised no one picked up on Sir David Kings comment :-Sea levels to rise twenty four feet (24) in the next 120 years. My burial ground will be under the sea then.
Sat 29 july bbc today 1hr 40mins in.
Professor Sir David King has been wrong on all his major climate predictions.
Despite his qualifications and title he’s a complete liability.
120 years? secure in the knowledge that this claim will be long forgotten, however the claim serves the interests of todays alarmists and subsidy harvesters. It’s been especially pronounced this year in a news media that has taken to announcing thresholds that are not reached in the timescales they claimed. There is no so much noise and deception and no easy way to hold their feed to the fire that they can tell lies with impunity.
Some years ago the grout used to seal the upper cylinder supporting the turbine with the lower cylinder driven into the sea bed was washed away. It wasn’t resistant to sea water and, yes, you couldn’t make this up. All of the early ones had to be lifted and repaired. The designs used were a tapered assembly joining the upper and lower piles with grout sealing them. The alternative of a bolted flanged assembly depended on the mating parts being concentric and perpendicular which was “difficult” at sea.
“Subsidy harvesting” Very astute observation, and a great way of summing up the Climate grift. I am going to start using your phrase, as it is perfect.
Thank you for this comment. It is very informative. I guess it is true, you learn something every day. Again, Thankx.
Wind turbines are limited by Betz Law – unfortunately, politicians have no limits to their energy incompetence
Sunday 7:10pm BBC1 Countryfile
Wind Farm parts company is bragging about the long Countryfile item about them
as if the first thing you think about for countryside is components for INDUSTRIAL machines that fill the fields and seas
Item was 12 minutes long !
After the acupuncture item from the King’s therapy studios
Claims UK has 11,000+ turbines generating 25% of our electricity
“Many of our windfarms were installed in the late 90s so wear and tear”
FakeNews there were hardly any turbines at 2000 nor at 2005 by 2011 we had a quarter of today’s
Their example “51 turbines and generates over 100 MW of power”
FakeNews the turbines are rated as 120MW total
so average output at 40% factor is 48MW
“The industry doesn’t track the waste”
em false, I bet it’s the law they have to
“estimated that 120KT will need replacing in the next 5 years
They’re talking about the yaw gears and say they don’t last nearly as long as the tower and blades
blah blah then Head of Sustainability at SSE comes on