Hyundai Heavy targets $300 M annual wind turbine sales to Chinese plant

Hyundai Heavy Industries expects annual sales of as much as $300 million from a wind-turbine factory in China as it bolsters clean-energy units to pare a reliance on making vessels.

The plant in Weihai in the eastern province of Shandong will open in October and may post at least $50 million of sales next year, Kim Kweon Tae, head of the company’s low-carbon energy business, said in an Aug. 31 interview in Ulsan, South Korea. The sales may jump sixfold by 2015, he said.

Hyundai Heavy will next year use the new factory to bid for work on an offshore wind farm planned off Shanghai, Kim said without elaboration. The China plant, which will be able to make 300 2-megawatt turbines annually, will also eventually be used to tender for projects in Southeast Asia, he said.

The company may also finish developing a 5.5-megawatt turbine, suitable for offshore wind farms, next year, Kim said. It is studying a plan to develop a 10-megawatt unit.

China, the world’s largest wind-power producer, plans to increase offshore wind power capacity to 5 gigawatts by 2015 and to 30 gigawatts by 2020, according to China’s National Development and Reform Commission.

Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., which also makes polysilicons used in solar cells and solar-panels, may consider buying other clean-energy companies as there are too many suppliers, which is causing prices to fall.

“China is a market you can’t ignore,” Kim said. “There will be a lot of competition but we plan to offer better quality and services.”

The full story is available at Bloomberg.