Vestas expands manufacturing foothold

The importance of the Spanish market for Vestas was underlined by two major events for the company in the space of a month. It inaugurated its first blade factory in the country, a 30,000 square metre facility costing EUR 76 million in the San Daimiel district of south-central Castile-La Mancha, and then began work on a EUR 50 million extension on one of its two nacelle factories, the Villadangos del Páramo facility in north-central Castile and León. The expansion will allow Vestas to more than triple manufacturing capacity for 2 MW turbines at the plant from today's 900 MW a year. Vestas expects to be turning out 3000 MW a year by 2010. At San Daimiel, Vestas will produce 1200, 44 metre blades a year for the V90 range, including 1.8 MW, 2 MW and 3 MW machines. Juan Araluce, head of Vestas Mediterranean, says the factory will serve the entire Mediterranean region. At Spain's PowerExpo event in Zaragoza in September, Vestas' Javier Rodríguez stressed the company's focus on consolidating major industrial hubs for feeding expansion in world regions. The expanded nacelle factory will also export its products to neighbouring countries, says Luís Bondelle of Vestas Nacelles Spain. Vestas now has four factories in Spain, the other two being a nacelle factory in Lugo and a facility in Ólvega that turns out wind turbine control systems. Araluce says the company will almost double its current 1300-strong workforce in Spain by end-2010.