India - Spanish wind turbine makers keen to supply components

In the light of global downturn squeezing demand in Europe, a delegation of 15 component manufacturing companies from Spain were in Chennai, to explore the possibility of supplying components to the Indian wind turbine manufacturing sector.

Facilitated by the Spanish chamber of commerce, the delegation held a meeting with the Indian wind turbine manufacturers association (IWTMA).

"Spain hosts the third largest wind energy industry in the world with a power output of 16000 MW," said IWTMA chairman D V Giri. That translates into an industry size Rs.96000 crore in Rupee terms. Global giants like GE and Axiona source their components from Spain.

The Indian industry, which imports 50% of its components, has been sourcing primarily from Italy, France, Germany and UK. "With recession hitting Europe, we expect to be able to strike a good bargain with this new entrant – Spain, here," Mr.Giri said.

The industry is looking at sourcing mainly critical components like hydraulics, bearings, gearboxes and switch systems from Spain. It also sees possibilities of engaging Spanish consultants in wind forecasting to predict power generation in a span of 48-72 hours.

The Spanish companies, which are mainly mid-sized automobile component manufacturers, are also looking at setting up manufacturing units in India.

"As they have a background in automobiles, their expertise would be in precision manufacturing on a serial platform, which would be useful to the recently scaled up wind turbine industry," Mr.Giri said.

As Indian manufacturers are not looking at localising their components in the near future, Spanish manufacturers setting up shop here would save them freight and duty costs.

For more information please contact Trevor Sievert at ts@windfair.net