GE Renewable Energy made a loss of $666m last year, compared with a profit of $292m in 2018.
The company did not give reasons for the yearly loss, but said a $197m loss in the fourth quarter – wider than the $21m loss in Q4 2018 – was down to several issues.
They included execution issues, particularly in the grid business, onshore price headwinds, tariffs and increased research and development investment.
Losses were partially offset by volumes with orders and revenue both up over the whole year by 10% and 7% to almost $16.9bn and $15.4bn, respectively.
The backlog also rose by 16% to over $27.5bn, the company said in its end of year 2019 results.
GE said 1215MW of orders were secured in China, with total sales for the year at 9500MW, up 40% year-on-year.
Revenue from the services business, which includes repower kits, rose 7% in 2019 to just over $3bn.
Orders were down in the fourth quarter to $4.7bn from almost $5.3bn due to the non-repeat of large deals in hydro and grid solutions, GE said.
Onshore wind orders were flat in the last quarter of the year, but the company did make record deliveries in the period of 1553 of which about two-thirds were in the US.
GE said testing to secure type certification is continuing on its 12MW Haliade-X prototype offshore wind turbine.
The model remains on track for commercialisation by 2021, the company said.