Siemens well on track to become one of the world’s top three providers of wind turbines New factories in China and the U.S. secure strong footprint in the most important wind markets

Siemens continues to expand its international manufacturing network in the rapidly growing wind power business: This week, the technology company opened in Shanghai its first rotor blade manufacturing plant in China, a new nacelle production in Hutchinson, Kansas, and has selected Tillsonburg in Ontario for its Canadian rotor blade manufacturing site. The investment volume for the three new locations is approximately EUR100 million. The company has already announced the construction of other wind turbine production facilities in the UK, India and China, and a joint venture for the production of wind turbine components for the Russian market.

“Ecofriendly energy sources such as wind power offer excellent prospects,“ said Wolfgang Dehen, CEO of the Siemens Energy Sector. “The global wind power market will grow from about EUR30 billion annually to as much as EUR216 billion by 2030. We see major growth potential in particular in the U.S. and China.” Over the last five years the average annual growth rate of wind power installations in the U.S. was 39 percent. With 10,000 MW in newly erected wind turbines and a total installed capacity of 35,000 MW in 2009 the U.S. was the world’s most important wind market, followed by the Chinese market, which grew from approximately 14,000 MW to 26,000 MW. Since 2005, the installed wind generating capacity in China has doubled every year. By 2020, China wants to have wind turbines with a combined capacity of 150,000 MW on line which equals three times the installed wind power capacity of all of Europe today. “With a record order backlog of more than ten billion Euros and the rapid expansion of our international manufacturing network, we have an outstanding setup up to become one of the world’s top 3 wind turbines providers by 2012,” added Dehen.

Internationalization is one of the main pillars of Siemens´ wind power strategy. “In two to three years time we’ll have twelve wind turbine production facilities in seven countries. We’ll thus have even closer customer intimacy,” said René Umlauft, CEO of the Siemens Renewable Energy Division. Currently, the company has seven manufacturing facilities in three countries. “We’re also working intensively on further reducing costs through the industrialization of production processes and innovations such as our direct drive wind turbine. Over the last two years we’ve tripled our wind power R&D budget and, in 2011, we’ll continue to increase it significantly. Our mid-term aim with wind power is to achieve full grid parity with fossil fuels,” said Umlauft.

Wind turbines are part of Siemens’ Environmental Portfolio. In fiscal 2010, revenue from the Portfolio totaled about EUR28 billion, making Siemens the world’s largest supplier of ecofriendly technologies. In the same period, our products and solutions enabled customers to reduce their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 270 million tons, an amount equal to the total annual CO2 emissions of the megacities Hong Kong, London, New York, Tokyo, Delhi and Singapore.