Denmark - Vestas set for years of solid growth

If one company’s sales are a bellwether for the industry then the wind energy industry is set for years of solid growth.

Vestas Wind Systems, of Randers, Denmark, with a 28 percent market share and more than 33,500 wind turbines in service worldwide, is the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer.

In 2006, the company delivered turbines with a total capacity of 4,239 megawatts – an increase of 1,054 megawatts or 33 per cent over the prior year. In spite of this increase, Vestas’ market share remained unchanged at the end of the year: Meaning everyone else is growing at roughly the same rate.

Vestas expects that the present wind power share of about one per cent of global power consumption will grow to at least 10 percent by 2020. The targets for renewable power in the EU and China will account for 20 percent and 15 per cent, respectively, in 2020, and the USA is expected to adopt similar targets. These targets mean that installed capacity is set to rise from 75,000 megawatts in 2006 to at least 1,000,000 megawatts in 2020, which translates into annual growth of more than 20 percent.

Vestas doesn’t announce all of its sales, usually just significant orders, but all of the following came in the last month of 2007 making December a particularly good month for the company:

- AES Corporation, of Arlington, Virginia, ordered 52, V90 series 3.0 megawatt turbines for use in an unspecified project - Total nameplate capacity for this order - 156 megawatts.

- UrbaenergÌa S.L., a subsidiary of the ACS/Cobra Group, ordered 32, V90 series 2.0 MW turbines for two projects in Spain - Total nameplate capacity for this order - 64 megawatts

- From an undisclosed purchaser Vestas received an order for 36 turbines; 26, V90 series 2.0 megawatt units; and 10, V90 series 1.8 megawatt. The turbines will be for projects in Spain - Total nameplate capacity for this order - 70 megawatts.

- Horizon Wind Energy, of Houston, Texas, placed an order for 242, V82 series 1.65 megawatt turbines scheduled for installation in various Horizon-owned wind projects in the US - Total nameplate capacity for this order - 400 megawatts.

- Duke Energy, of Charlotte, North Carolina, ordered 55, V82 series 1.65 megawatt turbines for the first phase of its Notrees Windpower project, located in Ector and Winkler counties in Texas - Total nameplate capacity for this order - 91 megawatts.

- EarthFirst Canada, of Victoria, British Columbia, placed an order for 48, V90 series 3.0 megawatt turbines for its 144 megawatt Dokie Ridge project -Total nameplate capacity for this order - 144 megawatts.

- Minerva, a project company of Alerion Energie Rinnovabili of Milano, Italy, ordered 27, V52 series, 850 kilowatt turbines for its project Castel di Lucio, near Messina in Sicily - Total nameplate capacity for this order - 23 megawatts.

All together, all orders, that’s 948 megawatts in turbine capacity ordered from one company in one month. It wasn’t too long ago when 948 megawatts was the entire industry-wide, worldwide capacity built in one year.

The company calls itself No.1 in Modern Energy. Modern energy is precisely what wind energy is and will continue to be for some time to come.