GE, Siemens Gamesa and WEG lead installation of wind turbines in Brazil in 2019

North American GE Renewable Energy led the installation of new wind turbines in Brazil in 2019, followed by Siemens-Gamesa and local manufacturer WEG (WEGE3), according to a report by consultancy Wood Mackenzie released on Monday.

While GE Renewable Energy maintained its position as the leader in Brazil wind energy, seeing the market share reach 55.8%, compared to 30.9% in 2018, the Danish Vestas fell from the second position to the fifth position, with only 2.8% of the wind turbines installed in the country in 2019, against 19.1% in the previous year.

WEG (Enercon), on the other hand, saw its participation in the Brazilian wind power equipment market grow to 16.6%, against 12.7% in the previous year, while Siemens Gamesa went from 12.5% to 17.4% of the machines assembled in the year.

In 2018, WEG and Siemens Gamesa had ranked fourth and fifth in the Brazilian ranking, respectively.

The figures, however, still do not take into account sales of new and more powerful lines of equipment launched by most manufacturers in Brazil in 2018 and 2019, Wood Mackenzie said.

“The latest generation of wind turbine technologies has captured a larger share of new closed orders in Brazil, while data on installations in 2019 is based on technologies from the previous generation. The installation (of equipment) of the latest technological generation will start to happen from 2020/21”, the analyst Shashi Barla, author of the report, told.

The lag is due to the delay between negotiation and closing of contracts and the actual implementation of the wind farms. 

In addition to the first three places, the German group Nordex (Acciona) in the fourth position, with 4.9% of the machines, and the German Enercon, in the flashlight, with no significant participation last year (0%), stand out in the list of Wood Mackenzie.

In 2018, Enercon had been the vice-leader of the market in Brazil, with 17% of the wind turbines installed, against 7.8% of Nordex, which was in that year with the last position.

Changes in the ranking of manufacturers came amid a slowdown in the pace of construction of wind farms in Brazil – the country installed a total of 1.1 gigawatt in new wind turbines from the source last year, down from the 1.8 gigawatt registered in 2018, according to Wood Mackenzie.

“Latin America, excluding Brazil, grew from 1.5 gigawatt wind farm capacity connected to the grid in 2018 to 3.6 gigawatts in 2019. Then capacity in Latin America grew, while it retreated in Brazil,” said Barla to Reuters in a note. 

In the global market, wind turbine installations in 2019 were dominated by the Danish Vestas, which maintained the leadership already seen in 2018. 

Siemens Gamesa and GE advanced one position each, to second and third places in the ranking, amid a retreat of Chinese Goldwind, which in 2018 was the leader in the fourth position in 2018.

Vestas had over 50% of its facilities in the Americas, with an emphasis on the North American, Mexican and Argentine markets.

Siemens Gamesa has advanced mainly in the UK offshore wind power market and with onshore wind farm parks in the US and Spain, while GE has connected projects in 24 countries, including premieres in Greece, Oman and Chile, among others, according to Wood Mackenzie.