Niall Stuart, chief executive of Scottish Renewables, said: “The winners reflect the huge strength in Scotland’s renewable energy industry, and the range of different types of projects from new community wind developments to cutting-edge wave and tidal devices. All of them will make their own important contribution to Scotland’s ambitions for renewables and in creating jobs, promoting investment and in cutting carbon emissions over the coming years.”
Gaia-Wind ceo, Johnnie Andringa, said: “Renewable energy is crucial to the future of Scotland and the UK and small wind is a vital sector. Gaia Wind is very proud to have been recognised as delivering outstanding growth in our sector by developing and carrying out our “ambitious plans” for what we believe certainly will be a very exciting future.”
“Over the course of the last year or so Gaia-Wind has created a world class Global Hub integrating R&D, design engineering, assembly and testing, as well as worldwide distribution and supply chain management – all on one site in Glasgow.
“The business is growing faster than the market: According to the FiT register Gaia-Wind had about 30 per cent unit share of installed turbines in the 10-20kW range over the 15 months leading up to June this year. On this platform we have generated more than 30 jobs in our UK company, not to mention the immediate service and supply chain, with the potential to double this figure in the coming years.
“This success is built on long experience” said Andringa. “More than 350 Gaia-Wind turbines have been “in the ground” for a combined operational time of more than 11 million hours. That’s over 1,500 years. In Denmark, for example 77 of our Gaia-Wind turbines have been running for more than 10 years
“Our customers now live in an information-rich environment. This means renewables companies have got to be able to back up their sales techniques with the facts. Transparency about performance, potential return on investment and help with planning are key to helping our customers join the green energy revolution.”