Country’s Onshore Wind Energy Act to Accelerate Wind Expansion
Wind turbine maker Nordex Group secured ten new orders in July for projects in Germany, one of Europe’s fastest growing markets for onshore wind energy.
The Hamburg-based company will supply 19 turbines with a combined capacity of 102 megawatts, or MW, for various customers with projects at Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and elsewhere, it said in a filing.
Germany’s new “onshore wind energy act” aims to accelerate the expansion of onshore wind, with a mandate for states to allocate 1.4 percent of their land area for wind development by 2026, and 2 percent by 2032.
“With the legislative packages adopted before the summer break and the ‘onshore wind energy act’, politics in Germany has created a clear political basis at the federal level,” said Karsten Brüggemann, Vice President Region Central for Nordex.
“Now it is the turn of the federal states and municipalities to quickly designate more areas and approve turbines – only then will it be possible to become independent of fossil fuels. The technology for this is available.”
Nordex is one of the world’s largest turbine makers, with manufacturing facilities in Germany, Spain, Brazil, the US, Mexico and India. The company has installed more than 41 gigawatts, or GW, of capacity in over 40 countries worldwide, generating revenues in 2021 of €5.4 billion.
The manufacturer, though, faced a challenging first half of the year, with sales falling by 21 percent year on year to €2.1 billion amid lower demand for turbine installations.
Supply chain disruptions such as the conflict in Ukraine war, lockdowns in China, a cybersecurity incident and volatility in commodity prices resulted in negative earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, of €173 million.
Still, in the first six months the company increased its order intake in the projects segment by nearly 8 percent to 3.0 GW. About 70 percent of orders are for projects in Europe, 23 percent in Latin America and 7 percent in North America.
“We expect the first half of the year to be weaker in terms of volume and margins, but we expect (results) to pick up in the second half of the year,” CEO Jose Luis Blanco said during a conference call with investors.
“Our order intake continues to be healthy and we continue to see a good pipeline of orders.”
Nordex is a member of the Breakbulk Global Shipper Network, a worldwide network of shippers involved in the engineering, manufacturing and production of project cargo.
A reception will be held for network members on 27 September from 5pm-8pm at the BGSN lounge at Breakbulk Americas 2022, taking place on 27-29 September at the George R. Brown Convention Centre in Houston, Texas.
This year’s lounge is being sponsored by logistics orchestration platform, e2log.
To find out more about the BGSN, click here.
PHOTO: Nordex N149/5.X turbine in Germany. CREDIT: Nordex
