Wind Energy

Wind energy Vestas new nacelle assembly plant

Vestas officially announces the establishment of its first wind power assembly facility and a new operations cluster in Brazil, both to be located in a brand-new facility of 10,000 square meters, including building and land, in Fortaleza in the State of Ceara. The investment is included in Vestas’ CAPEX program for 2011.

The new wind turbines assembly facility will be dedicated to assembly of nacelles. The assembly facility is expected to start operations in Q4 2011 to satisfy the needs of the wind farm project pipeline in Brazil. When fully operational, the facility will have an annual production capacity of approx 400 nacelles of the V90 and V100 turbine type representing an initially estimated annual capacity of 800 MW.

Vestas will also establish a new operations cluster consisting of three centres dedicated to service and maintenance activities, training, as well as spare parts and supply chain activities.

The new Service Centre will manage all service and maintenance operations to ensure optimal performance of the company’s installed wind power plants in the region.

The new Supply Chain and Spare Parts Centre will house and handle all spare part deliveries to the wind farms in the region to ensure smooth and on-time service and maintenance of our turbines.

Vestas in Brazil is developing a strong network of local suppliers which can deliver main components, products, spare parts and services for the manufacturing and operations of the company’s wind turbines in the country. This is the first major milestone of a larger industrial plan which Vestas is working on to develop a top-class local value chain in Brazil.

Vestas’ overall industrial plan in Brazil goes in line with the company’s ‘in the region – for the region’ approach helping to develop strong local competencies and creating new local jobs, while being closer to the customers and offering them a better service and support.

Having been operating in Brazil for a decade, Vestas established a new sales office in Sao Paulo in 2008 to handle all sales, construction and service operations in the country. As of 31 December 2010, Vestas has delivered to the Brazilian market a total capacity of 204 MW and since 1 January 2011 until now, Vestas has announced wind turbines orders for new wind farm capacity for 380 MW taking the current total capacity of announced firm and unconditional wind power orders in Brazil to more than 600 MW.

www.vestas.com