Published

6 months ago

December 1, 2025

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Europe Weighs Chinese Turbines Against Energy Independence

Allen covers the debate over Chinese wind turbines in Europe, from data security concerns and unfair subsidies to the risk of trading one energy dependency for another.

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Wind energy is one of Europe’s great strengths.

Providing twenty percent of European electricity today.

Over half by 2050.

That’s the plan.

Competitive. Homegrown. Quick to build.

Almost every wind turbine spinning in Europe today was made in Europe.

By European companies.

Assembled in European factories.

Hundreds of factories across the continent make components for wind turbines.

Over Four hundred thousand Europeans punch the clock in wind energy.

Every new turbine generates sixteen million euros of economic activity.

And this week, proof of that investment.

In Germany, the He Dreiht offshore wind farm just sent its first power into the grid.

Nine hundred sixty megawatts.

Germany’s largest offshore wind farm.

VESTAS turbines standing one hundred forty-two meters tall.

Sixty-four turbines total.

All commissioned by summer 2026.

NILS DE BAAR of VESTAS said the fifteen megawatt turbine sets new standards in offshore wind power.

European technology.

European manufacturing.

European energy.

In Ireland, more European investment.

SSE and FUTURENERGY IRELAND tapped NORDEX to build the Wind Farm in County Donegal.

Twelve turbines.

Sixty megawatts.

One hundred thirty-eight million dollars.

Forty thousand Irish homes powered when those blades turn in 2027.

And in Scotland and Italy, floating wind is consolidating.

NADARA is acquiring BLUEFLOAT ENERGY’s stake in ten floating offshore projects.

BROADSHORE. BELLROCK. SINCLAIR. SCARABEN.

Nearly three gigawatts of floating wind now under single European ownership.

Today’s wind farms save Europe one hundred billion cubic meters of gas imports every year.

In Britain alone, consumers saved one hundred four billion pounds between 2010 and 2023.

That’s after factoring in the cost of building the wind farms.

Wind means lower energy bills.

Wind means independence.

But here comes the temptation.

Chinese turbines are cheaper.

Much cheaper.

And in times of strained budgets and rising costs…

That’s hard to ignore.

GILES DICKSON is the CEO of WINDEUROPE.

He says…

Think about what you’re buying.

The European Commission launched an inquiry last year.

They suspect Chinese manufacturers offer prices and payment terms backed by unfair government subsidies.

European manufacturers can’t legally offer the same deferred payment deals.

OECD rules won’t allow it.

Then there’s energy security.

Europe just weaned itself off Russian gas.

Painfully.

Expensively.

Three years later, high energy prices still drag on the economy.

Does Europe want another dangerous dependency?

This time on imported equipment instead of imported fuel?

And as Giles points out – a modern wind turbine has hundreds of sensors.

Hundreds.

Gathering performance data.

Monitoring operations.

European law prohibits exporting that data to China.

But Chinese law allows Beijing to require Chinese companies to send data home from overseas operations.

There’s a contradiction.

Someone’s going to break the law.

And those sensors?

They don’t just collect data.

They can control equipment.

The European Union and NATO are voicing concerns.

The wind industry has invested over fourteen billion euros in new and expanded European factories in just the last two years.

That’s commitment.

That’s confidence.

And the rest of the world is taking notice.

In Japan, FAIRWIND just signed a strategic partnership with WIND ENERGY PARTNERS in YOKOHAMA.

MATT CROSSAN, FAIRWIND’s Asia Pacific Director, said Japan’s wind sector is still young compared to Europe.

But government support and investment are driving expansion.

They want European expertise.

European experience.

European standards.

Wind energy is the last strategic clean tech sector with a truly European footprint.

The last one.

Solar panels. Batteries. Electric vehicles.

Those have already migrated elsewhere.

But Wind remains.

For now.

Four hundred forty thousand workers.

Two hundred fifty factories.

Fourteen billion euros in new investment.

One hundred billion cubic meters of gas imports avoided every year.

Germany’s largest offshore wind farm now feeding the grid.

Ireland building new capacity.

Scotland consolidating floating wind.

Japan seeking European partners.

Europe can buy cheaper today.

Or build stronger tomorrow.

GILES DICKSON is sounding the alarm. But, will Europe listen?

That’s the wind industry news on the 1^st of December 2025.

https://weatherguardwind.com/europe-chinese-turbines/

Court Keeps GE on Vineyard Wind, France Plans Huge Wind Farm

Published

7 hours ago

June 8, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Court Keeps GE on Vineyard Wind, France Plans Huge Wind Farm

Allen covers GE Vernova ordered to stay on Vineyard Wind, TotalEnergies filing for France’s largest renewable project, Spain’s repowering grants, and Dajin’s Hong Kong stock debut.

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Good Monday.

Wind energy made news this week from Boston courtrooms…

to the coast of Normandy …

to the stock exchange floors of Hong Kong.

Let us start in Massachusetts.

A Boston judge has once again told GE VERNOVA it cannot walk away from VINEYARD WIND.

To understand why GE VERNOVA wants out…

you have to look at the money.

VINEYARD WIND owes GE VERNOVA three hundred and sixty million dollars

on a one-point-two-billion-dollar turbine supply contract.

VINEYARD WIND is withholding that payment.

GE VERNOVA says it has the contractual right to walk when it is not paid.

In February, they sent VINEYARD WIND a termination notice.

VINEYARD WIND sued.

In April, Judge PETER KRUPP issued an injunction ordering GE to stay.

GE VERNOVA came back and asked the judge to reconsider.

Vernova pointed to statements from state officials and VINEYARD WIND’s own parent company describing the eight-hundred-and-six-megawatt project as essentially complete.

If the project is done, GE argued, there is no harm in letting us leave.

Judge KRUPP did not buy it.

Here is why this matters so much to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

VINEYARD WIND is the largest offshore wind project in New England.

It is owned jointly by Spain’s IBERDROLA

and Denmark’s COPENHAGEN INFRASTRUCTURE PARTNERS.

It began initial operations just this past February…

after the developer won a separate court fight to keep federal construction permits intact.

Sixty-two turbines.

A four-point-five-billion-dollar investment.

The anchor project for offshore wind in the entire region.

The judge found that GE VERNOVA’s proprietary expertise

is still needed to bring those turbines to full operational capacity.

Pull GE’s more than two hundred employees and subcontractors off the job…

and the project’s financing structure could collapse.

Massachusetts Governor MAURA HEALEY has weighed in publicly.

The state has too much riding on this project to let it unravel in court.

GE VERNOVA still has its appeal of the April injunction pending.

But for now… the turbines keep turning.

Now let us cross the Atlantic.

Off the coast of Normandy, France…

TOTALENERGIES has filed for government authorization

of a massive offshore wind farm called CENTRE MANCHE ENERGIES.

This will be France’s largest renewable energy project… ever.

One-point-five gigawatts of offshore wind.

Located more than forty kilometers off the Normandy coast.

Four-point-five billion euros in investment.

Up to twenty-five hundred construction jobs over three years.

Once running, the wind farm will generate

roughly six terawatt-hours of clean electricity per year…

enough to power more than one million French homes.

TOTALENERGIES was awarded this project by the French government

eight months ago.

Filing for authorization is the next milestone on the path to construction.

Meanwhile… across the Pyrenees in Spain…

The Spanish government has awarded grants for eighty wind repowering projects

totaling two-point-four gigawatts of capacity.

With Nearly four hundred and sixty million euros in subsidies.

The goal: replace older turbines with more efficient technology by twenty-thirty.

The names on the award list read like a who’s who of European wind energy.

IBERDROLA… STATKRAFT… EDP…

ENEL GREEN POWER… NATURGY…

RWE … and others.

IBERDROLA alone picked up four hundred megawatts of new capacity.

And this repowering wave is not just replacing old machines.

Some projects are swapping out turbines that were once the industry standard…

one-point-five and two-megawatt machines…

for the far more powerful equipment available today.

The industry is not just building forward.

It is rebuilding smarter.

And finally… a story from the other side of the world.

A Chinese manufacturer of offshore wind foundations and towers

called DAJIN HEAVY INDUSTRY

made its debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this past Friday.

The share sale raised up to eight hundred and forty-seven million dollars.

DAJIN claims a notable distinction:

it says it ranked as Europe’s largest offshore wind foundation supplier

by monopile sales value in the first half of twenty twenty-five.

The company plans to use more than half the proceeds

to expand its deep-sea wind power services…

and one-fifth to build an assembly facility in Europe.

As we know wind energy is continues to push forward.

On every front.

And that is the state of the wind industry for the eighth of June, twenty twenty-six.

Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Court Keeps GE on Vineyard Wind, France Plans Huge Wind Farm

Is There a Line that Trump Cannot Cross? — “Your Elections Are Rigged!!”

Published

7 hours ago

June 8, 2026

Alice Rush

When Trump comes after a TV journalist with psychotic aggression like this, the world wants to know how far his criminal insanity can go without someone putting a stop to it.

It may be true that his approval ratings have ceased to matter to him personally, but don’t they matter to Republicans in congress? Don’t their constituents, even the complete idiots, have some sort of limit?