7 Sep 2009
NRI industrialist C Sivasankaran promoted Siva Ventures acquired a controlling stake in Finnish wind power company WinWind in 2006. The JV which operates three manufacturing plants in Europe, catering to European demand, has established its first facility in the district about 50 km away from Chennai.
The plant built on 67 acres at an investment of Rs.375 crore will manufacture 1 MW turbines, with 60-65% localisation and wind mill blades, at a capacity of 4 wind turbine generators (WTGs) (and 12 blades) per day or 1000 MW per annum. The company plans to scale this up to 8 WTGs (and 24 blades) per day or 2400 MW per annum.
The company is presently only in the manufacturing space. But, as the Indian wind energy space expects turn key solutions from manufacturers the company might be expected to acquire land, set up the wind farm etc. But, the company is not getting into all those yet.
The company’s USP, at present, is its focus on low cutting speed generators (146 rotations per minute) which are capable of working in class II and III wind areas, that is areas with wind speeds as low as 3.5 to 4 metres per second.
Winwind said that the company was following an outsource model of production. They source gear boxes and other allied equipment, built to their design and specifications, from companies like Kirloskar, KPCL in Karnataka.
