Siemens Gamesa plans to close two blade plants and axe 266 jobs in Spain as part of what the wind OEM called “tough but necessary measures” to get its onshore business back on track amid a shift to larger turbines.

The OEM will shut the Somozas and Cuenca plants with the loss of 215 and 51 jobs respectively said the company, citing lack of orders for the SG 2.X-114 model blades produced at the former and blade repair services at the latter.

Siemens Gamesa said orders for the turbine had dried up, and Somozas would be logistically unable to make blades for the larger machines increasingly demanded by the market.

Cuenca is unsustainable “in an extremely competitive repair market as well as a growing trend to replace rather than repair blades”.

Siemens Gamesa last year unveiled a turnaround plan for its onshore business under newly-appointed CEO Andrea Nauen, designed to return it to profitability and match the performance of the OEM’s successful offshore and service arms.

Onshore CEO Lars Krogsgaard, who was himself appointed by Nauen last year, said of the Spain cuts: "We urgently need to return to the path of profitability and the only way to do it is by applying measures such as these, and those ones already carried out in our Onshore business in the last year and a half.

“We have analysed all the options, but concluded there is no alternative. These are tough measures, but necessary to put the company back on track and guarantee its sustainability and the employment of the more than 24,000 employees of Siemens Gamesa, around 4,400 of them in Spain."

Siemens Gamesa will start statutory consultations with staff over the job losses in the next few days.

Nauen said after taking over last year that the onshore operation would more closely tailor its operation to the needs of the market, and focus ruthlessly on profitability over volume when signing project deals.

Its ongoing commitment to Spain – historic home of the Gamesa wind business that was merged with the former Siemens Wind Power business to form Siemens Gamesa – is a sensitive issue in the country, but the OEM insists it will retain a large presence there.

Wind

'Tough but necessary': wind giant Siemens Gamesa axes jobs and plants in Spain