European wind turbine manufacturing giants like Denmark’s Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS), Germany’s Nordex SE (NDX1) and Gamesa Corp. Technologica SA (GAM) are in for a nice year, with profit recouping predicted after years of losses and shutdowns.
For the first time since 2010, these European wind turbine manufacturers are poised to register pretax profits, and investors are already driving shares up in anticipation.
According to Bloomberg, shares in Vestas, Nordex and Gamesa have jumped around 220% this year on forecasts.
Things have been bad since 2010, with thousands of layoffs and plenty of plant closures, combined with subsidy cuts in Europe that hit these companies hard and overcapacity.
Related article: US Wind Sector Booms, Driving Prices Down
The past few years have been all about building efficiency and cutting costs for a comeback—and that comeback has begun, with a 31% recovery in clean energy shares for 2013.
Vestas has recovered from a 14-year low and analysts predict over 100 million euros in operating profits this year, while Nordex has recovered 180% after bottoming out at a seven-year low in 2012 and is expected to record a net profit of 10 million euros. Gamesa has more than tripled so far this year, with last year being its worst ever, and analysts are predicting 41 million euros in profits.
By. Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com
All the hand waving coming from Vestas is meant to distract from the fact that the company can't survive on the merits of big wind turbines. It needs government mandates, supports, breaks, and kickbacks so monstrous that they undermine the stability of the underlying economy governed by that administration.
Wind is unpredictable, unreliable, turbines often consume more energy than they produce, and they break down after just a few years of unproductive use.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-06/vestas-future-questioned-after-revenue-forecasts-cut-twice.html