China High Speed Transmission Equipment Group, the nation's largest windmill transmission gear maker, has said strong mainland demand means orders on hand far exceed its output capacity, even though the credit crunch has prompted major customer General Electric to delay some deliveries.
Chairman Hu Yueming said that due to strong domestic demand, the company had received orders for enough gears to drive 9,000 megawatts of wind turbines, compared with its capacity to produce gears for 6,000MW this year.
The strong domestic demand more than made up for a slowdown elsewhere. In February, China High Speed revealed that GE had delayed shipment on 400 units, or a third of its orders, for this year after some customers failed to obtain financing to pay for turbines made by the United States equipment giant.
'It is normal for GE to slow its delivery given the circumstances,' Mr Hu (left) said. 'I believe the US market is huge and the crisis will only bring a temporary slowdown in orders.'
Next year, China High Speed will have the capacity to make gears for 10,000MW of turbines. It is doing trial runs for higher-capacity and higher-profit-margin gears for 2.5MW and 3MW turbines, and expects to start commercial production for 2.5MW gears next year.
Last year, it sold 94 units of gears for 2MW turbines, 1,456 units for 1MW to 1.5MW turbines, and 1,114 units for 0.75MW turbines.
