Windfair-Interview with Dirk Behrends, Service Manager Voith Industrial Services GmbH

Windfair: Is the Wind Energy Industry a priority for your company? How so?

Dirk Behrends: In 2004, the Group established the Wind business unit and was at the time the first manufacturer-independent service provider for wind energy systems on the market. We all consider this to be a sustainable and especially innovative market. There has been a strong increase in the importance of wind energy over the last few years. This is associated, not least due to the devastating events in Japan, with a change in this market that we want to play an active part in shaping. It is necessary to develop domestic energy sources to guarantee stability and safety, and this cannot be achieved without wind energy. We believe that we are in an excellent position, not only in Germany but also globally, to provide for our customers in the field of maintenance, service and repair of wind energy systems.


Windfair: How many employees does your company have? How many dedicated to Wind Energy?

Dirk Behrends: Voith Industrial Services employs about 20,000 in total, and more than 40,000 are employed by Voith. / 100


Windfair: Do you have any new or upcoming Wind Energy Products or Services?

Dirk Behrends: Voith highly-elastic coupling, from our affiliated company Voith Turbo: developed for the system types Nordex/Südwind S70/77, Repower MD70/77 and Vestas V80. In long-term tests on the S70, it has been proven that loads on the drive train are substantially reduced. Hence it is possible to extend the service life of the transmission by a factor of 1.4 with the Voith coupling.
A new service is our new Wind Information System. This contains monthly, quarterly and annual reports. We have also developed new services in the fields of full maintenance concepts, plant auditing and repowering.


Windfair: Do you have any special training programs for your employees?

Dirk Behrends: Voith's employees are its greatest asset, and in order to guarantee high quality we must, and we want to, invest in our staff. Voith Industrial Services GmbH is currently developing a training concept that is based on the international wind energy training programme. The Group also demands and naturally promotes technician and foreman qualifications. In the office, we also train staff in the commercial sector. We offer students the opportunity to take bachelors and masters degrees so that graduates can also make their first step in this market segment with Voith. Voith also supports measures from educational institutions aimed at training further personnel for the future.


Windfair: Tell us about your future developments. What can we expect in the next year or two?

Dirk Behrends: With our first foreign project that we started last year with 46MW, we have shown that we can also meet international customer requirements to the highest standards. It was not just our first foreign project, but also the first full maintenance concept that we had offered. Here, Voith displayed innovation and courage. We will also involve other branches of the Group into the wind sector to utilise synergies within the company, and hence contribute towards optimisation of the wind energy systems. The elastic coupling of our Group affiliated company Voith Turbo is an example of this. We will continue to work on the value chain and real net output ratio so that we may continue to provide state-of-the-art technology to our customers. With our business, we contribute towards the energy change. Customer satisfaction and the success of our clients are of paramount importance.

In this regard, I wish all of our customers and partners continued success in the 2011 business year.