The German industrial conglomerate Siemens is expanding its global manufacturing network for wind turbine plants and is building a new facility to produce rotor blades and nacelles in Lingang New City in Shanghai.

 

This new facility is scheduled to go operational in the second half of 2010 and will initially have 400 employees. The wind turbines produced in Shanghai will be both for the Chinese market and for export. Siemens is investing more than EUR60 million in setting up this new location.

 

At the cornerstone laying ceremony for the new plant Wolfgang Dehen, CEO of the Siemens Energy Sector and a member of the managing board of Siemens AG, stated that Siemens is expanding its commitment to environmentally-friendly energy technology in China with this new wind turbine production facility in Shanghai. He added that China could soon become the largest wind energy market in the world and with Siemens' new production facility in Shanghai they were establishing an excellent starting position to meet the growing demands of this market. He also commented that Siemens was advancing the internationalization of their manufacturing network for wind turbines to meet the needs of its customers in Asia, Europe, and America.

 

The new production site will have a total area of 180,000 square meters and is in an excellent location for shipping and traffic facilities, being close to the Yang Shan deep-sea harbor. Siemens will initially produce blades for 2.3 and 3.6 MW wind turbine plants. These blades will be produced using the IntegralBlade process patented by Siemens, without any glued joints. Wind turbine plant nacelles will also be produced at this new plant. A nacelle is mounted on the top of the tower and supports the rotor as well as enclosing a wind turbine's major components for electric power generation, including the gearbox, the drive train, and the control electronics.

 

The production capacity for the new facility is initially planned to be 500 MW annually. The first wind turbine blades and nacelles are scheduled to leave the plant in time for the EXPO 2010 international exhibition in Shanghai. Siemens has already reserved additional space in Lingang for potential expansion of this production facility.

 

Wind turbine plants are an important component of the Siemens environmental portfolio, which earned the company revenues of nearly EUR19 billion in fiscal 2008, roughly a quarter of Siemens total revenues.