Indian wind turbine company Suzlon Energy plans to expand production capacity at its plant in Tianjin by two-thirds and is mulling adding production sites in northern China to be closer to customers' wind farms, according to its new China chief.
The company announced last Friday the appointment of Hongkonger Richard Ho as chief executive of Suzlon Energy Tianjin from December 1. Suzlon also has plants in India, the United States and Germany.
Ho was formerly managing director of venture capital firm Global Infrastructure Asia and was country manager at the Asia-Pacific units of American utilities Covanta Energy and Ogden Energy.
He said Suzlon plans to expand the capacity at its Tianjin plant, which began production in 2007, to 1,000 megawatts by the end of next year from 600MW. He said this will not involve much new investment since the expansion will come through the upgrade of its products' generation capacity from between 1.5MW and 2.1MW to 2.25MW.
'The expansion reflects the change in the centre of gravity of the wind turbine manufacturing business and our commitment to China,' he said.
'As quality of components improves, we also plan to use China as a hub for exports.'
Suzlon is reportedly planning to export 120MW of wind turbines from China to Brazil, but Ho said it is in the final stages of talks and no agreement has been sealed. He would not provide a geographical break-down of global sales, although chairman Tulsi Tanti was quoted by the International Business Times as saying in September that China accounts for 10 per cent of its global sales and this was expected to rise to 30 per cent by 2015.