Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy will start manufacturing the ‘next generation’ wind turbine SG 3.4-145 at its Mamandur facility, near Chennai, from the third quarter of calendar year 2020, said a top official.
“It is a Made-in-India product for the Indian market. We will start exporting them, if there are orders. The turbine was showcased to Indian customers on Thursday. We will start manufacturing them by the third quarter of CY2020 and supplies would begin a year later,” Navin Dewaji, India CEO, Siemens Gamesa told The Hindu . Enrique Pedrosa, onshore chief regions officer, Siemens Gamesa, said: “the prototype was commissioned recently at the Alaiz wind farm of Spain. The turbine is designed to adapt to India’s extreme and varying weather conditions, supported by an advanced monitoring and cooling system.
“This will ensure efficient thermal conditioning and performance at high-temperature sites,” he added.
According to them, the new wind turbine is an extension of the Siemens Gamesa 3.X platform, of which the company has installed more than 3GW globally. The new model has been upgraded with the 145-metre rotor of the Siemens Gamesa 4.X platform. This rotor is already under production in India.
“Currently, we have a backlog of orders for the previous version SG 2.2-122. We will stop making them as soon as we clear the backlog, Mr. Dewaji said adding that COVID-19 impacted their business operations globally.
To a question on the market conditions for wind turbines, he said: “It was not growing for the last three years. For the short term, it looks good. It will pick up next year and it is going to be steady as we are a believer in long term.”
Siemens Gamesa has been in India since 2009, and the base installed by the company recently surpassed the 6.5 GW mark. The company has two blade factories in Nellore and Halol (Gujarat), a factory in Mamandur and an operations and maintenance centre in Red Hills, Chennai. It also has an R&D centre in Bengaluru, where it employs more than 100 engineers.
