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Business|GE Vernova May Cut 900 Offshore Wind Jobs as It Scales Back
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/20/business/ge-vernova-offshore-wind-layoffs.html
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The company, a spinoff from General Electric, has been plagued by financial losses in its wind unit and, more recently, accidents involving the failure of turbine blades.
Sept. 20, 2024, 12:20 p.m. ET
The energy company GE Vernova said on Friday that it would pare back its troubled offshore wind business, which has been hit with financial losses and accidents. The changes, which are aimed at coping with a difficult environment for the wind industry, could result in around 900 job losses.
The company’s struggles are a blow to the offshore wind industry, which has farms off the coast of northern Europe and is thought to have potential to supply large volumes of green energy to the East Coast of the United States.
A substantial downsizing of GE Vernova would leave just two main western players, Siemens Gamesa of Germany and Vestas Wind Systems of Demark — a situation that could leave the industry short of construction capacity and could push equipment prices higher, raising consumers’ bills.
GE Vernova, a spinoff from the venerable General Electric industrial conglomerate, said it had presented a proposal on Thursday for reducing the company’s size to its European Works Council, which represents its workers, a necessary step before job cuts.
The company said in an emailed statement that its new plan reflected “industrywide challenges for wind” and aimed to create “a smaller, leaner and more profitable business.”
The company declined to specify which countries’ operations would be hit hardest, but it has a large turbine factory in Saint-Nazaire, France, near the mouth of the Loire River.
