Stefan Tenbrock, Winergy
Release Date: 2009-07-27
Denmark is widely considered to be the birthplace of the wind industry and the home of numerous wind industry champions, but the country has failed to become the global centre for gearbox manufacturing. Why has Germany succeed where Denmark failed in setting international standards in the gearbox market?The reason is in the industrial history of both countries. Denmark has no heavy metal industry while Germany is well known for its heavy metal and industrial gearbox industries. As a result, many of the world leaders in gear technology, and therefore the leading manufacturers of gearboxes for wind turbines, are located in Germany.
Many German companies in Germany with a strong tradition in industrial gearboxes manufacturing did not have the courage to enter the wind industry. Why did Winergy decide to make this move so early?
Already in the beginning we saw a good market opportunity. Even though the business was very small at that time, there were some people in our organization who believed in the development of this market. We did not expect the market growth that we have witnessed in the last years, but we saw the potential and realized that we had the right product at the time. We started with industrial gearboxes which were adapted to the specific requirements of a wind turbine. Later, when the volume of wind turbine construction increased rapidly, we started to design specialty gearboxes which are totally different from industrial gearboxes.
Developing a reliable gearbox for wind turbines continues to be a great technological challenge, and other players in the value chain often blaim the gearbox for wind turbine downtime. What is your response to this?
The gearbox is often mentioned in the discussion on technical problems, but statistics indicate that there are a lot of other components that have a much higher failure rate. The gearbox is so often mentioned in connection with problems because gearboxes failures are expensive to repair. The corrections have to be done in the workshop which means that the gearbox has to be taken out of the turbine, which is especially costly for offshore wind turbines.
Several of the world’s leading wind turbine manufacturers are constructing direct drive wind turbines or are investing in this technology. What is the main argument for relying on gearbox technology, and what are the main improvements that can be made to enhance its competitiveness?
The main argument for a gearbox is that the setup with a classical drive train, gearbox and generator is the most cost efficient design. But I also agree that gearboxes have to be very reliable; reliability is the top item in the wind turbine business. A lot of our activities in the last years have concentrated on increasing the reliability of our drive components. For example, the biggest portion of our investment has been spent on test equipment. Today, we have the world’s largest test capacity with more than 65 megawatt in test benches for gearboxes and generators. Each of our gearboxes has to undergo a thorough full load test before it leaves one of our factories. That is the normal testing procedure for gearbox production, but our prototypes undergo even more extensive testing programs in which we run long-term overload tests to figure out if there are any potential weaknesses in the gearbox before it is released for serial production.
In the past few years the supply of gearboxes has been a bottleneck for the global wind industry, and every manufacturer has been ramping up capacity as fast as possible. How successful has Winergy been in coupling a quality focus with the rapid expansion of manufacturing capacity?
Winergy has grown in step with the industry over the past few years but we have kept a very strong eye on quality so that our growth has not come at the cost of reliability. Our quality processes very tough from beginning to end including full load and water testing. We obtain all the data from gearbox noise, vibration, temperature as well as the bearings, which gives a clear indication whether there is something wrong or not.
We had an interesting discussion with Henrik Stiesdal, Chief Technology Officer at Siemens, about the future of the wind turbine; will it get bigger and bigger or should the industry focus on optimizing the existing turbine sizes. What are your priorities between optimizing gearboxes for existing smaller turbines or are you focusing most of your efforts on large turbines of 5 megawatts and more?
Its both, currently the bread and butter business is still from 1.5MW to 2.5MW. A lot of activities are focussed on optimizing our products in the lower megawatt range, but a lot of effort is spent in the development of bigger gearboxes for larger megawatt turbines.
To which extent are Winergy’s R&D activities integrated with your customers’ new product development activities?
The process is very closely linked because we are involved at a very early stage with OEM design and development activities. In recent years, much more customer data, such as detailed quality specifications, has become available compared to 15 years ago. Interacting contact starts during the development phase and continues throughout the whole design process; there are meetings at certain milestones during the design phase as well as production. During prototype testing it is quite normal that our customer join the test and we evaluate the results jointly. We also involve our sub-suppliers at a very early stage.
Do you see Winergy’s high global market share stressed by new manufacturers that are emerging in countries such as China? And where do you draw the balance between investing in the development of new markets and focussing on traditional Winergy customers?
Balancing the two is the best strategy; we are sticking to our customers but we also are looking for new customers especially in China. We see a large amount of new players coming up in the Chinese market, and it looks like more and more appear every week. It is obvious that we cannot serve all of the newcomers. Winergy is present in the Chinese market with our own organization, so we have a very good overview what is going on in China and who is involved in development of these new players.
Europe has criticized China on the fact that the formulation of the tenders for wind power projects as part of China’s economic stimulus package has favoured domestic companies. What does that mean for your strategy in China?
Our strategy has not changed because we expected that there would be a strong push for the local Chinese wind turbine manufacturers. Winergy decided a long time ago to look for local customers in the Chinese market; which is one reason why we have a production facility in China. You have to be there otherwise you do not have the opportunity to sell to Chinese companies.
Who do you work with at the moment?
No specific names.
What do you believe to be the critical factors for Chinese wind turbine manufacturers when the decision between using a Winergy gearbox or a gearbox manufactured by a Chinese supplier? How much of a threat to you is the local competition?
Although we are more advanced compared to our Chinese competitors, we have more than 20 years experience in wind turbine gearboxes manufacturing and development, the local competition has to be taken very seriously. Winergy has very high quality standards but the Chinese gearboxes manufacturers are quickly advancing on the same learning curve Winergy went through. They are progressing at a faster rate because they can learn a lot from the industry’s history. As the Chinese wind industry develops along the learning curve both its quality requirements and cost level will inevitably increase. Since we produce locally we will be on a level same playing field with our Chinese competitors. If we have identical quality levels to meet identical customer specification then there is no reason Winergy cannot be competitive in China. Currently, Chinese customers have to choose between just a gearbox and a gearbox with a very high reliability and quality standards at a premium price. Furtherone Winergy is the only supplier to offer complete drive train solutions including gearbox, generator, frequency inerter and couplings. Our interdisciplinary knowledge along the whole drive train is a very strong argument to decide for Winergy products and solutions. We answer the increasing wind turbine populations with our premium service offer in connection with condition monitoring and condition diagnostics systems.
Using a Winergy gearbox could be an important selling point for Chinese wind turbine manufacturers that are starting to export to the US and perhaps Europe. Is this a market opportunity for the future?
No, with our production facility in China we serve the Chinese market. This is the same as we do with the United States as well as India.
We discussed with Ivan Brems, CEO of Hansen Transmissions, his impressive future growth ambitions and expansion plans. What are your plans?
Our strategy is to grow with the global market. Stronger growth looks likely in China and the US than in Europe but the rates will be different depending on development.
When is your next trip to China?
Good question. Not yet fixed.
What are your expectations for the next trip that you will be making and what are your final remarks to the readers of IBD and your partners in China?
We look forward to continuing our growth path in China. The market is developing as expected, characterized by strong growth, but it remains to be seen whether this will continue through the next couple of years. Fundamentally there are good reasons for growth, China has huge demand for electrical power and the Chinese have also recognized the importance of environmental issues that were previously ignored. Wind power is the strongest way to meet the growing energy demand without having any detrimental effects on the environment.
| Company: | Winergy |
| Position: | CEO |
| Country: | Germany |