Published

3 years ago

April 6, 2024

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

LM Wind Power Cuts 700 Jobs, Closes Blade Factory in Turkey

LM Wind Power announced the closure of their blade production factory in Turkey that employed 700 people. In Denmark, LM Wind Power appears to be cutting highly-qualified engineering and support staff. This news comes just days after their parent company, GE Vernova, became a stand-alone company.

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Allen Hall: I’m Allen Hall, president of Weather Guard Lightning Tech. And I’m here with the founder and CEO of IntelStor, Phil Totaro. And this is your News Flash. News Flash is brought to you by our friends at IntelStor. If you want intelligence that generates revenue, then book a demonstration of IntelStor at IntelStor. com.

A lot of news coming out of LM Wind Power. today. This is Friday, April 5th. All news reports indicate that the facility in Turkey is being closed and has been closed for a couple of days, evidently. And there is a massive shift happening, layoffs, at least 700 in Turkey. It sounds like up to a couple hundred, mostly focused in Denmark at the moment.

Phil, what is happening behind the scenes here?

Philip Totaro: There’s quite a bit. Obviously what G. E. Vernova has said publicly about this and LM for that matter, is that they want to focus on profitability. And simply put, they just didn’t seem to have enough order book to justify continuing the factory in Turkey.

Now we’ve talked before on the show about the fact that Turkey has one thing going for it as a market, which is not just the domestic demand that they’ve got which is reasonable, although not entirely robust but they have a favorable currency trade against the U. S. dollar, which means that if you’re using Turkey as an export market, it’s theoretically is a great place.

TPI’s there. There are a few other companies that have manufacturing facilities there. But the issue for LM is they weren’t for the blade lines that they have in Turkey. They weren’t getting enough orders for those blade lines that they have set up. And so I guess for them, it makes more sense to consolidate into their production facilities in Spain and Denmark.

As well as what they have currently in, in North America. And India and China for that matter.

Allen Hall: Several months ago, LM Wind Power was headed a direction of essentially separating Europe from the Americas, and running it as two separate businesses. And now this happens. Now there’s some significant layoffs happening in Denmark.

You still think they’re headed in that direction, trying to grab separate marketplaces and maybe react differently to those changing economics?

Philip Totaro: Yes, there, nothing seems to have changed based on, some of the internal memos and things like that, that have leaked out the where they suggested that they’re going to be doing this reorg.

But the reality is that again with the focus on profitability I believe that it makes sense for them to to do something that’s regionally segregated. Depending on how they want to proceed with the business moving forward, whether it’s divesting factories or acquiring factories, there, there’s any number of things they could do that is theoretically made easier by regionally grouping assets together.

Allen Hall: The people that are being laid off in Denmark, from what I can tell at the moment seem focused in engineering, maybe support engineering too, high level. paid long term employees that they’re are laying off. That’s not typical of a Danish company to do something like that. They must be doing some really major restructuring.

Philip Totaro: Yeah. We’ve seen people posting on different social media platforms about, the, they’ve been there for 15 years or 20, one guy was 26 years, I think. And the reality of that is that’s it comes back to profitability because people who have been there that long there, the pension cost for, that, that long lived at a company is going to be pretty high.

So it’s really unfortunate that this has had to happen to anybody. But it’s also, it, this take this in the context of recent comments made by the LM’s new CEO at the recent wind Europe event where he was talking about the fact that, China is presenting more competition and that comes in the form of Sonoma or CRRC which is Times New Materials which also has blade manufacturing, Dongfang’s got blade manufacturing.

There’s, still dozens and dozens of Chinese companies that are not only doing blades for the Chinese OEMs, but also some of the Western. And, it’s just hard to compete on price when you’ve got that level of competition. So this comes back to, the request that not only LM but a lot of European companies made saying, look, you’ve got to help us with.

Something that helps facilitate us covering these pension costs and helps improve the profitability of our businesses in Europe, if you expect us to be able to keep these jobs in Europe and the tax revenue from all these people in Europe, otherwise we’re going to have to look at lower cost tax revenue. jurisdictions to, India, China or even Brazil to go manufacture in.

Allen Hall: Does this drive a change in what’s happening within the EU politically? I haven’t seen anything this strong. Ørsted having a problem just recently, which sent shockwaves through the wind and energy community.

in Northern Europe, Scandinavia, right? And it had an effect in the United States and all over the place. This is likely to have a similar sort of effect. LM is obviously a major player in wind blades and has been there for a long time. Now there’s a bunch of free agents out there with a lot of technical knowledge.

You want to keep them engaged in Europe, you would think, otherwise they’re going to wind up in other places you may not want.

Philip Totaro: Yeah, and that, that’s actually the most important point of this is, you’ve got companies like Ares in Brazil who are looking at a global expansion that they’ve been very public about.

You’ve got. TPI that is also, out there as an opportunity for some of these people to land at, and you’ve got the Chinese keep in mind also, you’ve got companies like Adani group in India that have just announced this new, 5. meter rotor that they want to have, they’re planning on installing, something like 17 gigawatts of that in India alone.

With Adani’s, parent company support they’ve got projects in Sri Lanka and they’re also looking at, an international expansion. So the fact that there’s all these experienced LM people that are now available I wouldn’t be surprised to see them get snatched up. Whether, again, whether it’s any of the options in the menu I just listed above, it’s, it, it could be the, these folks are talented people from LM and they could end up landing anywhere.

Allen Hall: I do think there is more to come over the next couple of weeks. We’re just beginning to hear just the tip of the iceberg right now. So stay tuned to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast and to Newsflash here, and we’ll bring you the latest as we hear it.

LM Wind Power Cuts 700 Jobs, Closes Blade Factory in Turkey

Renewable Energy

As Europe Shuns Chinese Turbines and Components, Who Will Fill the Gap?

Published

15 hours ago

November 9, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

As Europe Shuns Chinese Turbines and Components, Who Will Fill the Gap?

While most of Europe has spent most of this year itemizing reasons it cannot, should not, and will not use Chinese wind turbines or components, accusations and arm-twisting tactics have garnered most of the attention.

But we invite you to consider a future – maybe just five, or ten years from now?- in which those same countries and companies are eagerly awaiting orders from wind turbine manufacturing facilities in… India.
What?!
You know that the country has a lot of installed wind.

You may think – and many in the industry would agree – that India’s blade manufacturers are a few revs behind blade-makers elsewhere in the world. But the country is newly committed to manufacturing and it’s busy installing more – provided that it’s made in India, with Indian technology, by Indian workers.
Of course, similar domestic-focused policy currents are running through European countries – where wind OEMs are almost inarguably a decade ahead of Indian manufacturers. But there’s an important reason why we say, “watch India” in wind turbine manufacturing.

It’s because you might learn something.

If you follow The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, you probably heard this discussion a few weeks ago. It wasn’t the headline story – we try to highlight as many major news items and trends that we can, and follow up as credible information becomes available. India’s quiet moves to strengthen its own renewable energy industries didn’t grab the headlines. But it comprised a good bit of our panelists’ discussion.

With India’s expanding manufacturing capacity, and Suzlon’s strategic offerings for the European market (Blue Sky), there are reasons for European developers to take a closer look at Indian manufacturers.

If Europe continues to squelch deals with Chinese manufacturers due to data security issues, India is a relatively obvious candidate to fill the void, for several reasons:

The country has depth and breadth in R&D: India (Suzlon, specifically) has a track record of involvement and relationships across the continent, as it operates research and development centers in Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark.
Indian service providers have reach: Inox and Adoni Wind operate multiple wind turbine manufacturing plants and wind farms throughout several Indian states, and Apraava Energy has been commissioning wind projects, working with multiple OEMs, for more than 16 years.
The country’s energy sector has size: Tata Power is estimated to be worth about US$16 billion and employs 22,000 people.

And major manufacturers from other countries have had a strong presence in the country for years:

GE Vernova has turbine blade and nacelle manufacturing operations and multiple tech/R&D centers in India;
Vestas has a R&D technology center in Chennai; and
China’s SANY Wind has had assembly facilities in India since 2017, and in 2024, it signed a licensing agreement with JSW allowing SANY to manufacture blades and generators for JSW – enabling JSW Neo Energy to produce wind turbine generators and major components in-country.

So while there is hard data suggesting that India is already a global hub for wind turbines, sometimes the real strength comes from soft skills. Like sharing information.

We’ve noticed that Indian manufactures aren’t stingy with information. They share what they learn in the field and on the shop floor, so that the whole industry can move faster to solve problems. That bodes well for the industry overall, and particularly well for companies who figure out how to solve problems that some manufacturers aren’t even ready to admit to having.

We’ll be watching India with a great deal of interest in the coming months. Subscribe to The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast and follow along with us.

We’re not financial analysts. We’re engineers who watch the wind industry very closely. This is what we’ve noticed, and we thought it was worth sharing.

Where do you think you’ll be looking for solutions, components, and service providers in the next few years or the next decade? Tell us what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

As Europe Shuns Chinese Turbines and Components, Who Will Fill the Gap?

Renewable Energy

When You Write for Idiots, You Can Get Away with Anything

Published

18 hours ago

November 9, 2026

Alice Rush

To the author of the meme here:

“Either” refers to two choices; “any” refers to three or more.

More importantly, it’s amazing how shamelessly the ultra-right wing exaggerates. The left side of the Democratic party would like to see the United States look like social democracies in places like Scandinavia. Having government programs that benefit the common person, e.g., Social Security, public schools, emergency relief, libraries, environmental responsibility, etc., does not equate to Stalinism.

When You Write for Idiots, You Can Get Away with Anything

Renewable Energy

Are Muslims “Dangerous?”

Published

20 hours ago

November 9, 2026

Alice Rush

Some of my old prep school chums from the Class of 1973 convene via Zoom approximately every six weeks for a 90-minute discussion of current events, science, and anything else that sounds interesting.

Our professions range from medicine, law, finance, and business management. All from highly ranked colleges. Over 50% hold doctorate degrees.

Here’s something I find fascinating about the group: it includes one right-wing conservative. I don’t mean a Reaganite; I mean a Trump supporter. This guy is incapable of any thought that doesn’t come directly from Nexsmax.

It’s almost eerie how closely he toes the line of the far-right. Yesterday he echoed the Newsmax talking point and told the group that all Muslims holding public office are “very dangerous” and should be removed.

Now, the rest of us are sitting there, dumbfounded at this idea, unwilling waste our breath on this racist and utterly preposterous concept.

All this raises the question: How are our political viewpoints formed? How much of this is genetics? Epigenetics? Early childhood experiences? How do take a boy from among the best environments and turn him into someone who struggles to understand the most basic principles on which our country was founded?

https://www.2greenenergy.com/2026/11/09/principles-country-was-founded/