Siemens signs multiple 10-year wind service contracts in North America

Underscoring growing customer confidence in the valuable benefits Siemens Energy can provide with its flexible, longer term wind service agreements, the company has been awarded 10-year wind service agreements encompassing over 400 onshore wind turbines in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. The customer is Pattern Energy Group Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGI) (TSX: PEG) (“Pattern Energy”), based in San Francisco, California. Combined, the scope of these long-term contracts represents one of Siemens’ largest agreements with a single customer in North America.

Pattern Energy is a leading independent power company with a portfolio of 10 wind power projects in the United States, Canada and Chile.

“This is an important milestone in the continued maturation of the wind industry in North America,” said Tim Holt, CEO of Service Renewables, a business unit of the Siemens Energy Service Division. “As more and more wind energy is placed into service, our commitment is to provide long-term added value to customers like Pattern Energy in order to help them realize favorable performance throughout the turbines’ lifecycle.”

“As an industry leader with vast experience, Siemens brings long-term reliability and technology enhancements to our wind projects, ensuring improved performance and lower operating cost risks from each and every turbine,” said Mike Garland, President and CEO of Pattern Energy.

Helping Pattern Energy obtain continued reliability, availability and performance of the turbines, Siemens will provide the long-term service and maintenance, as well as technology updates, for six Pattern Energy wind projects located in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico with a combined output of over 930 megawatts (MW).

The current operating projects included in the new service agreements are Pattern Energy’s St. Joseph Wind project in southern Manitoba with 60 SWT 2.3-101 wind turbines (138 MW); Spring Valley Wind in eastern Nevada with 66 SWT-2.3-101 wind turbines (152 MW); Ocotillo Wind in Southern California with 112 SWT-2.3s-108 units (265 MW); Hatchet Ridge Wind in Northern California with 44 SWT-2.3-93 wind turbines (101 MW); and Santa Isabel in Puerto Rico with 44 SWT-2.3-108 units (101 MW). These projects are also slated to receive a variety of modernization and upgrade components representing the latest technological advancements, such as Siemens’ Power Curve Upgrade, a combination of add-on components designed to help improve the aerodynamic performance of installed turbines.

In addition to the projects currently in operation, Siemens has also signed a 10-year service agreement for the Panhandle 2 wind project in Texas with 79 SWT-2.3-108 turbines (182 MW), which Pattern Energy has agreed to acquire when the project reaches operation later this year.

Siemens currently provides service and maintenance for more than 3,100 installed wind turbines in the Americas region and more than 7,600 globally, with a combined generating capacity of approximately 17 gigawatts (GW).

The Siemens service program focuses on providing a tiered range of flexible services to help customers achieve high availability throughout the lifecycle of the wind turbines and wind farms. Intelligent service offerings such as the company’s innovative remote monitoring and diagnostics help customers achieve optimum performance from their wind turbines. These systems provide real-time data for predictive maintenance at well-timed intervals, as well as helping to identify potential issues in advance, allowing for a proactive response. The large amounts of data can reveal trends that can then be interpreted and closely analyzed by Siemens experts, contributing to improved service and maintenance regimes based on overall field performance, as well as to future design technology.

Wind power and the associated service are part of Siemens’ Environmental Portfolio. Around 43 percent of its total revenue stems from green products and solutions. That makes Siemens one of the world’s leading providers of eco-friendly technology.

AWEA Wind Power 2014 in Las Vegas, May 5-8, 2014: Booth 2864