GE has made the decision to shelve plans to build a blade factory in Teesside. The original plan to construct 107m blades and hire up to 750 people in 2023 has thus been scrapped, GE confirms to Renews.

”We are not moving forward with plans for a Teesside facility,” the company noted while also telling the media that the decision comes ”due to a lack of volume”.

At the end of last year, the US turbine manufacturer suspended work on the facility to assess the situation. This was because the company had failed to generate any appreciable business for its Haliade-X platform.

Following Thursday’s Contract for Difference results, the company has made the decision not to go through with the plans, which would otherwise have provided GE with local anchorage for its British offshore wind projects. So far, GE only has a single firm order in the UK, namely the Dogger Bank complex in the North Sea, which won in the third round of CfDs.

”We remain committed to supporting the growth of UK offshore wind, including powering what will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm at Dogger Bank,” said a GE spokesperson to Renews.

The matter of local production has been an increasingly prominent theme in the UK in recent years.

Many unions and industrial players in both northern England and Scotland argue that locals here haven’t been offered a proper share of the jobs that come from being the world’s largest market for wind at sea, leading them to demand a change on this score. With the shelving of the plans for GE’s facility in Teesside, such prospects seem even more distant, however.

GE sets up production in UK

GE commissions 14MW Haliade-X

GE buys into start-up involved in 3D printing of turbine bases

GE forms partnership in South Korea