Spanish company Windar Renovables (Grupo Daniel Alonso) has brought the manufacturing of wind turbine towers to Russia, where today a plant run by WRS Towers, a partnership which includes the Russian groups Rusnano MC and Severstal PSJC and is led by the Spanish company, will begin operations.
It is the first production centre for this type of equipment to be established in the country, where an ambitious land farm installation program is to begin immediately.
The factory, which is located in Taganrog in Rostov, was opened by the governor of the region, Vasily Golubey, who was accompanied by the Deputy Minister for Industry, Vasily Osmakov. Both were received by the president of Rusnano MC, Anatoly Chubais, the managing director of Severstal, Alexander Shevelev, and the executive president of Windar Renovables Orlando Alonso. From left to right: Peter Spiridonov, Alisher Kalanov, Alexander Shevelev, Orlando Alonso, Anatoly Chubais, Vasily Golubev and David Rowen
300MW by the end of 2020
The WRS Towers plant was built to support a government program for the development of renewable energy. In its first phase, the commissioning of the factory required a 750 million rouble investment, which is equivalent to approximately 10 million euros. The project was developed based on a Special Investment Contract (SPIC) signed by the Russian Federation, the region of Rostov, Severstal, and WRS Towers, with the support of the Russian Ministry of Trade.
Equipped with Windar technology, which has been tested across the three continents in which this company has facilities, the WRS Towers factory will produce enough towers each year for the installation of up to 300MW, although that level will be reached by the end of 2020. Another of WRS Towers’ members, Severstal, will be able to provide the steel plates required for the manufacturing of this equipment at a competitive rate.
In the first phase, the main client will be the Fund for the Development of Wind Energy, created by Rusnano and Pao Fortum through their company OOO Vetroparky FRV, which was awarded tender projects which have a combined capacity of 1.8GW. The turbine supplier Vestas was chosen by the Fund as a global technology partner, acting as the main supplier of equipment. The awarding of this contract is subject to the existence of a manufacturing program in Russia, which is why they sought the collaboration of Windar Renovables, Vestas’ global OEM partner.
The steel wind turbine tower is a hollow structure formed by a set of conical-cylindrical sections which support a gondola and a rotor mechanism at the top of the structure. The tower can be up to 120 metres tall and weigh up to 270 tonnes.
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