The ongoing trade tariff negotiations between China and the US can provide Siemens Gamesa's India manufacturing units with an opportunity to step in and meet the increasing demand for wind energy equipment.

Markus Tacke, Chief Executive Officer, Siemens Gamesa said “Looking at the export capabilities, we need to take in respect the current negotiations between China and US and, looking at it in a calm way, there might be opportunities around that”. This was in response to a query on the scope for Siemens Gamesa to increase its wind energy equipment manufacturing facilities in India.

At present the company has two blade factories in Nellore (Andhra Pradesh), and Halol (Gujarat), a nacelle factory at Mamandur (Tamil Nadu) and an operations and maintenance centre in Red Hills (Tamil Nadu).

Tacke said the company recently started looking towards its manufacturing facilities in  India to export wind energy generation equipment as well as meet the domestic demand. “We have had a very good and successful practise in the past that products made in India are used in India…We actually use our Indian facilities to export, we have the example of blades recently.”

With reagrds to the quantum of exports, Ramesh Kymal, the India head of Siemens Gamesa, said,  that the company has been exporting blades to different places such as the Americas, and now the larger 145 motor that produces 4.5 MW of power from a wind turbine is also being exported.

The global wind energy market is expected to increase by an average of 2,7% each year between 2019 and 2023, according to the Global Wind Report 2018. In 2023, total wind energy plants will be up to 58.7 GW, compared to 51.3 GW in 2018.

Mr. Kymal went on to add that “In terms of turnover it (export) is not that large now because we have to cater to the local market also from that same facility. But we find that wherever there is large manual content, for example in blades, we are able to ramp up faster and bring down the costs to make it cost competitive. So exports of these items has a great future in my view”.