Siemens Gamesa has made a historic decision for Spain. The Spanish-German conglomerate has decided to manufacture in our country some of the first units of its 14-15 MW offshore wind megaturbine at the Reinosa plant in Cantabria.
With this decision, the company is preparing for the emergence of this new technology in Spain, which is now only waiting for the Government to call the tenders promised, in principle, for the Canary Islands and Catalonia.
According to sources consulted by this newspaper, for the moment, the Reinosa plant has already produced six of the 50 wind turbines that the Coastal Virginia park will receive, one of those equipped with the SG 14 model, the largest the company has. and is preparing to grow to 15 MW in the coming years.
The manufacturing of this park also represents a year-round workload for the Cantabrian plant, which has 250 employees and will allow increasing the local manufacturing weight in the face of the upcoming competitions in Spain, where the local production factor will be valued in the offers. .
Shovels like ‘Big Ben’
To give us an idea of the dimensions of these giants, the 15 MW turbines have a height of 236 meters, practically the equivalent of the Crystal Tower in Madrid, with 108 meter blades (the size of Big Ben) that allow a sweeping surface that reaches 39,000 square meters and a nacelle that weighs up to 500 tons.
Siemens Gamesa’s purchases from Spanish suppliers reached 1.4 billion euros in 2023 (last year with available data). Of these, 143 million corresponded to purchases for offshore projects in Germany, Denmark, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
Siemens Gamesa launched an offshore wind center in Spain in 2023, focused on the execution of projects in the areas of engineering and design, but had never manufactured an offshore wind turbine. In fact, this was one of the main attractions for Siemens’ purchase of the company to increase synergies between both.
This center is dedicated to supporting the global offshore team dedicated to the execution of projects in Northern Europe with a team of 50 employees with engineering and management profiles, to which we must add some employees who already before the launch They were dedicated to commercial work.
According to the data provided by the company, the company already has orders for this new turbine for more than 17 GW, which would mean a valuation of around 42.5 billion and would make it a best-seller. Specifically, it is about 9 GW for the East Anglia 2 and Hornsea 3 parks with the SG14-236 DD model. And regarding the other existing model, the SG 14-222 DD, the orders would be 7.5 GW – Moray West, United Kingdom (882 MW) – and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (2,640 MW), the largest order until the moment of this megaturbine.
As this newspaper already indicated, Siemens Gamesa is also making progress in closing two million-dollar contracts for the construction of two offshore wind farms in Japan, valued at more than 2.6 billion euros, with the 15 MW megaturbine. The European wind turbine manufacturer has positioned itself as a preferred supplier to the winning consortia in the third auction held in Tokyo, which will mean the need to increase its production capacity for this turbine.
As the company explains in its annual report, “in the offshore sector, Siemens Gamesa is considerably expanding its production facilities in response to the growth of the renewable energy market. In this regard, due to the situation in the supply markets (including the of personnel) there were delays in the launch of new and modified capabilities in France, Germany, Denmark and the United Kingdom, among other countries.
This situation would have caused the possibility of the Reinosa plant entering among the new locations for the manufacture of this megaturbine, since in fiscal year 2024, the company focused on overcoming the bottlenecks in the supply markets and on putting ready their factories.
The company indicates that revenues are likely to be affected by the sharp decline in orders received last year and the expected growth in offshore activities will not be able to offset the decline in onshore activities.
Gamesa expects comparable revenue growth of between -9% and -5% for fiscal year 2025. Around €9 billion of the order book at the end of last year is expected to be converted into revenue and is seen likely that the evolution of profits continues to be greatly influenced by the effects derived from quality problems in the land area and cost increases related to acceleration in the maritime area, although these costs are expected to decrease significantly compared to last year. SG expects a negative profit before special items of around €1.3 billion for fiscal year 2025.
Merger of the service area
At the beginning of fiscal year 2025, all services activities will be merged with the other activities of the onshore and offshore business to simplify communication with clients and accelerate the execution of the projects the company has underway.
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