www.moneycontrol.com
Mar 13, 2010
Engineering group Siemens said on Friday the opening of a new Danish assembly line for a key mechanism of wind turbines was a step towards becoming one of the world's top 3 wind turbine makers by 2012. Until recently Germany-based Siemens has ranked as the world's sixth biggest manufacturer of wind turbines in terms of market share, behind Denmark's Vestas, US General Electric, Spain's Gamesa, Germany's Enercon and India's Suzlon.
But last month the head of Siemens wind power, Andreas Nauen, told Reuters in an interview that he was confident Siemens overtook Suzlon in 2009 to grab the No. 5 spot. Siemens is already the leader in offshore wind turbines. "Siemens wind power is well on the way towards the 2012 goal," Nauen said in a statement on Friday. "2010 looks promising compared to the outlook at the same time last year."
The group's Danish subsidiary Siemens A/S started up the new assembly line for nacelles - - the structures at the centre of the turbine comprising the rotor shaft, gearbox and generator - - at its Brande, Denmark, plant, the company said. "As a decisive step towards a position among the Top 3 in the global wind turbine market, Siemens wind power today inaugurates a whole new assembly line for nacelles for the 2.3 MW wind turbine," Siemens A/S said in the statement.
The new assembly line would help secure "lean and effective production of wind turbines and, not least, increased production capacity." Since the project began in 2007, it has managed to reduce the throughput time from 36 hours to 19 hours for final assembly of every nacelle produced, and the number of work stations from 18 to eight, Siemens said. "So more nacelles can be produced with the same number of employees," it said. "It is not enough to have a solid order intake, we must also produce efficiently and work in the most suitable and smartest way all over the globe," Nauen said in the statement.
Siemens is also building a nacelle plant in Kansas in the United States and will start making rotor blades and nacelles in China. It also plans to produce in India. The Global Wind Energy Council estimated that the world market for wind turbine installations was worth about 45 billion euros ($62.01 billion) in 2009. Consultancy BTM has estimated that global installed capacity will more than double to 340 GWs by 2013.
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