Vestas in talks with Mitsubishi to build world’s biggest offshore wind turbine

28 Nov 2012

Vestas wind turbines used in Horns Rev offshore wind farm in the North Sea, off the coast of Denmark

Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas has confirmed the company is in talks with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to build an 8MW offshore turbine – the world’s biggest – after the news first broke in August about a possible collaboration.

This week, Vestas also secured €900m in financing from nine banks through to 2015.

It was back in August that Vestas first indicated a possible strategic alliance with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Since then, Vestas announced it would be upscaling its 7MW wind turbine to have 8MW of capacity – which would be about 30pc more powerful.

According to a report on Bloomberg, Dag Andresen, chief financial officer at Vestas, said the company was in talks with Mitsubishi about developing the 8MW turbine.

And Businessgreen has also reported that the talks between Mitsubishi and Vestas are focusing on the development of the 8MW turbine that is on target to be installed in offshore wind farms by 2014.

“We are developing an 8MW offshore turbine called the V164 … and we are in dialogue with Mitsubishi about co-operating on that, but that’s all we’ve said,” confirmed a Vestas spokesperson.

On the morning of 25 January 2013, Silicon Republic, in association with the Green IFSC, will host the Green Growth Forum 2013, where high-profile international keynotes will be joined by local experts and leaders in finance, technology and policy, and take part in mediated panel discussions. The theme of the forum is: Fostering and Financing Green Innovation.

Carmel Doyle was a long-time reporter with Silicon Republic

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