Vestas Wind Systems has one of the highest costs among its peers and will have to take painful steps in order to remain profitable.

That’s the word from Justin Wu, a Hong Kong-based analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance who tracks the wind energy industry.

“Turbine manufacturing margins have plummeted while competition has become increasingly fierce,” Wu said.

His comments came in response to news from Vestas that it is cutting more than 2,300 jobs in Europe and China, and that it could be forced to make cuts to its workforce in the U.S. later this year.

There are about 1,600 jobs in the U.S. that could be affected, including hundreds in Northern Colorado, where the Denmark-based company operates blade and wind-turbine plants in Brighton and Windsor.

This isn’t the first bad news from Vestas. For one reason or another, the company’s stock has lost almost 92 percent of its value since peaking in 2008. Given its struggles, and its difficulty in responding to competitive pressures, the company’s credibility at the moment obviously isn’t where investors would like to see it.

Yet wind is a key part of our national energy policy and