The order allows the return of professionals who had gone elsewhere. The construction of the 29 jackets that Iberdrola has contracted to the alliance formed by Navantia and Windar renovables at the Fene shipyard is about to begin. Everything is ready at the Perlío factory and the selection process for the personnel to be employed by the Asturian multinational, which will carry out its part of the work at the former Imenosa, has also been completed.
The president of Windar renovables, Orlando Alonso, explained that all the necessary adaptation work has already been carried out at these facilities, where it has a team of a dozen professionals. However, the impact on employment that the manufacture of the components that his company will be responsible for – the lower nodes of the structures, the transition pieces and the piles – will have on employment will be much greater. The 300,000 hours of work to be carried out by Windar will employ around 300 people, estimates the president of a company that has five wind tower manufacturing plants in Spain, both for onshore and offshore wind farms, and another two in India and Brazil, although it also has plans for one more in Mexico.
The workers hired belong to the region of Ferrol, says Alonso, who for many years worked closely, through the Daniel Alonso Group, to which Windar belongs, with Endesa in As Pontes.
In addition, some of those hired are professionals in the metallurgical sector who had left the area due to the lack of job prospects and can now return thanks to this new contract.
Training process
Orlando Alonso insists that the Iberdrola order must be carried out with excellent results, as, together with Navantia, they are participating in eight other offshore wind energy tenders that could bring much more work to the region.
He explains that, over the next five years, 27,000 megawatts will be approved in offshore wind farms in Europe, mainly in Germany and the United Kingdom, which will mean a demand for the construction of around a thousand machines each year.
Few shipyards or consortiums of companies have the capacity and experience to be able to access this market, and in fact in the tenders for which they are bidding with Navantia they are up against an average of seven other bidders.
Floating platforms
The president of Windar renovables, which has already manufactured a jacket for a Danish company and has focused its production at its plants on the manufacture of both onshore and offshore towers, has very good expectations of winning an order that is expected to be completed before the summer, for the manufacture of floating platforms for a European offshore wind farm. Although without abandoning caution, he explains that, if they are awarded the contract, all the manufacturing will be carried out at the Fene shipyard.
He insists that Navantia has requested that all the work that is achieved thanks to this alliance – in the same way as the Iberdrola order – be carried out, as far as possible, in the region. In addition, it stresses the important repercussions for local companies. With the exception of the steel, which comes from Arcelor, and the jacket tubes, which come from Germany, the rest of the manufacturing is carried out in Ferrolterra and with companies from this geographical area.
LA VOZ DE GALICIA
