Gamesa to develop two wind farms in Tamil Nadu (India)

“We are setting up an 85-MW wind farm in Theni and 50-MW wind farm in Coimbatore. We will install our wind turbines in these wind farms on behalf of other investors,” Ramesh Kymal, chairman and managing director of the Spanish group’s Indian subsidiary Gamesa Wind Turbines, told on Tuesday.

According to him, the Theni wind farm will have around 100 wind turbines and the Coimbatore wind farm around 60 units.

“The turnkey cost of installing a wind turbine (cost of machine and erection costs) will be around Rs.6.5 crore,” Kymal said.

Gorge Calvet Spinatsch, chairman of the Spanish group, said: “Development of wind farms is a key component of our business globally. But we will not be the utility generating the power.”

According to Kymal, Gamesa’s Rs.200-crore Indian plant near here has an annual capacity to make wind turbines for 500 MW, with each wind turbine of 850 kilowatt (kW) capacity.

The wind energy plant will be making nacelle – that houses the gear box and drive train – and the mast while wind turbines will be imported from Spain initially. Later, Gamesa will localise the components in a phased manner. According to Kymal, the company has started exporting wind turbines to Sri Lanka.

Queried about competition making MW class wind turbines in India when Gamesa is still in kW stage, Kymal said: “Bigger need not be better in Indian conditions. The bigger machines should have proper spares support during the life time of the windmill. Our price per kW is competitive when compared to competition.”

Gamesa Corporación Tecnológica consolidated improvements in its margins as of end third quarter 2009, improving the wind turbine activity’s EBITDA by three-tenths of a point (13.7%) as compared to the same period in 2008.

The management strategy aimed at controlling working capital by synchronizing manufacturing and customers’ delivery needs, along with the cost-cutting programs implemented, took the EBIT/sales margin for the wind turbine activity to 7.2%, better than forecasts made for the year, which ranged from 6% to 7%.

Gamesa is a company specializing in sustainable energy technologies, mainly wind power. Gamesa is the market leader in Spain in wind energy and is positioned among the most important wind turbine manufacturers in the world.

Gamesa has installed over 16,000 MW of its main product lines in twenty countries spread out over four continents. The annual equivalent of this production amounts to more than 3.45 million tons of petroleum (TOE)/year and prevents the emission into the atmosphere of more than 24 million tons of CO2/year.

The company has production centers located in Spain, Asia and the United States with an international workforce of around 7,000 employees.

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