A world leading supplier of turbine technicians, expertise and services to wind farm projects across the globe has chosen the East of England to expand.
Global Wind Service (GWS) will be supplying wind farm projects worldwide from its offices in the iconic sea view building, OrbisEnergy, in Lowestoft, where it has gathered its UK team.
Jason Smith, operations manager, said: “We are quite busy with our array of services. Onshore order books are filling up well and we definitely expect a fair share of the offshore market in 2016 and beyond.
“Onshore, we supply the whole package, right from pre-assembly and installation to commissioning and, further on, we do servicing and maintenance, which we also offer offshore.”
More than 600 people are employed by the company – set up in 2008 – working closely with its related company, Fred. Olsen Windcarrier
GWS is one of the most experienced service providers in the wind industry and has delivered more than 300 projects in more than 30 countries worldwide.
Highly-specialised teams have worked on almost every major offshore wind farm in Europe.
GWS’s finance team relocated from King’s Lynn to OrbisEnergy first, with its human resources, projects and Health, Safety, Environmental and Quality (HSEQ) following on.
Mr Smith said the company chose OrbisEnergy to expand because of its coastal location, its range of tenants – some already GWS clients or working with related company Fred. Olsen Windcarrier – and the facilities provided in the building.
“The offices are superb. Commercially, it is ideally located for the upcoming Round 3 wind farms. There will be a lot of development off the east coast.”
The company had knocked four offices into one “big productive space,” which could accommodate up to 15 people when the whole team was working together, he said.
“It was important to us to have all of the UK team sitting together. OrbisEnergy has accommodated this. We have our own meeting room for our technicians to come in for meetings and space for confidential meetings.”
GWS has eight business units worldwide – Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Turkey, South Africa, Romania and the UK, providing highly skilled technicians to a large base of customers from wind turbine manufacturers to utility companies, large and small.
“Currently we are working worldwide, in Scandinavia – Finland, Sweden, Denmark – Germany, Turkey and, Morocco.”
GWS is among 26 companies with staffed offices and 41 virtual tenants in OrbisEnergy.
As well as 3,300sqm of offices, meeting rooms and conference facilities, the five-storey building also offers an offshore renewables business network, including access to finance and investment.
Johnathan Reynolds, business development lead at OrbisEnergy, said: “Global Wind Service is a huge success story and is growing and growing. We are thrilled to see our tenants expand and will accommodate their needs as much as we can and offer as much support as we can to their team in expanding and exploring new markets.”
“Lowestoft is at the heart of the region’s offshore wind industry with a growing number of companies speaking with us seeking to move into OrbisEnergy following the positive progress of the East Anglian Offshore Wind and Galloper projects being developed off our coast.
1. OrbisEnergy is the Hub for Offshore Renewables in the East of England, a specialist innovation and incubation centre for the East of England’s offshore renewables energy business and a flagship building at Britain’s most easterly location, Ness Point in Lowestoft.
2. It is at the heart of the East of England’s offshore wind industry, which is at the centre of the world’s biggest market for offshore wind deployment and the UK’s most dense area of offshore wind development with a market value of more than £200bn.
3. OrbisEnergy brings together companies to help develop new business opportunities, generate work, projects and contacts, facilitating greater market share in the industry is key to ensuring supply chain companies have access to the wind, tidal and wave renewable energy.
4. Services at OrbisEnergy include:
· Flexible tenancies in high quality offices or virtual tenancies
· Unrivalled conference facilities
· Networking and business support
· Access to finance and investment
