5 Renewable Energy Companies Innovating Wind Power

The Wind Power industry is booming. According to the Global Wind Energy Council’s 2021 report, 2020 has been the best year in history for the global wind energy sector, with 93 GW of new capacity installed, resulting in a 53 percent year-on-year increase. There are now 743 GW of wind power capacity installed worldwide, helping to reduce global CO2 emissions by over 1.1 billion tonnes.

The sector’s exponential growth is not expected to slow down any time soon as companies across the sector research, invest and innovate new turbine technologies to reach net-zero targets. But who are the major players within the wind energy industry contributing to the sector’s astounding growth?

GE Renewable Energy

GE Renewable Energy, headquartered in Paris, France, is a division of General Electric which focusses on the production of energy from renewable sources. Not only do they work to find solutions within wind, both onshore and offshore, but they also have operations within hydroelectric and solar.

The company was established in 2015 when GE bought Alstom’s wind power assets and combined them with its own assets operated under its Power & Water division.

GE Wind Energy is GE Renewable Energy’s subdivision which focusses on the manufacturing of wind turbines for global supply.

Worldwide, GE Renewable Energy has more than 400 GW of renewable energy installed. They have 49,000 onshore wind turbines installed with a total onshore wind energy capacity of 62 GW over 35 countries. GE Renewable Energy has also invested over 400 million USD to develop the most powerful offshore wind turbine.

The Haliade-X, a feat of engineering and innovation, is GE’s flagship offshore wind turbine. It features a wind capacity factor of 63 per cent and produces more energy than any other offshore wind turbine on the market. It has a rotor diameter of 220 metres and a height of 260 metres.

Siemens Gamesa

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy is a Spanish-German wind engineering business based in Spain. The company was created in 2017 through the merger of Siemens Wind Power and Gamesa. It both manufactures wind turbines and provides offshore and onshore wind services.

The company is the second largest turbine manufacturer in the world and is best known for its SG 14.0-222 DD wind turbine, the largest in the world with a capacity of 14 MW and up to 15 MW with Power Boost, a rotor diameter of 222 metres and a blade length of 108 metres. Serial production is planned for 2024.

Siemens Gamesa have installed over 107 GW in 75 countries worldwide. Within offshore wind power, Siemens Gamesa is one of the largest players in the market, with a 70% market share.

Siemens have invested a lot into digital R&D and innovation, making great efforts to develop their wind turbines, factories, services, and system integration solutions, so that their renewable energy technologies also allow for data collection and interpretation, automatization, optimization, and remote decision making.

They are also keen on collaborating with academics, policy makers, and other industry leaders to bring wind energy forward and make it ever more efficient. Recently, they have been collaborating with Oersted and three UK universities, looking at how renewable energy research can lower the costs of offshore wind power.

They have also been partnering with the Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Economics and Energy System Technology to develop a method for measuring turbulent wind fields with Multi-LiDAR-systems.

Vestas

Vestas Wind Systems manufactures, sells, installs, and maintains wind turbines worldwide. They were founded in 1945 and are headquartered in Denmark. They’re currently the largest wind turbine company in the world.

They’ve installed more than 136 GW of wind turbines in 84 different countries, more than any other company. They currently have more than 117 GW of capacity under service and hold more than 18% of the global installed base.

Vestas have a long history of innovation. Already in the 1990s, they had connected individual turbines into a central server and had invested in what was at the tome the world’s most powerful supercomputer. In 1998, they connected a turbine to the internet for the first time ever, then establishing the first online service centres, SCADA systems, Data Centre and cloud servers.

Nowadays, they have managed to create the V236-15.0 MW turbine, the biggest in their portfolio, with a swept area of 43,742 square metres, the largest in the industry.

Goldwind

Goldwind, founded in 1998, is a Chinese state-owned wind turbine manufacturer and service provider, headquartered in Beijing. Currently, they’re present in 29 different countries across 6 continents and have 8 Research and Development centres worldwide.

Up until now, Goldwind have delivered more than 40,000 wind turbines worldwide with an overall capacity of over 73 GW. Their operations and maintenance service capacity exceeds 47 GW.

Goldwind’s global installation of wind turbines has saved the equivalent of 45.53 million tons of standard coal, 149.44 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions or reforestation of an 81.66 million cubic metres area every year.

Their largest turbine is the GW175-8.0MW, with a rotor diameter of 175m and a hub height of 110m.

Currently, they hold more than 3,500 Chinese patent applications (including 2,000 invention patents), over 650 software copyright registrations, and over 400 overseas patent applications. They were also the first company in China to develop and test a grid-connected prototype and mass-produce wind turbine towers using a hybrid steel and concrete design. This technology won the second prize at the Power Construction Science and Technology Progress Awards in 2016.

Suzlon

Suzlon Energy Limited, established in 1995, is an Indian wind turbine manufacturer and service provider based in Pune, India.

It currently has over twelve thousand turbines, nearly 19 thousand MW installed worldwide, and active operations in 18 different countries spanning the entire globe.

Suzlon’s 18,800+ MW wind energy installations are equivalent to 3 billion trees reforested, energy for 10 million homes or 39 million tonnes of C02 emissions prevented every year.

Their largest wind turbine is the S128 2.6 MW and is India’s largest wind turbine, with a hub height of 140 metres, a swept area of over 13,000 square metres, a blade length of 63 metres and a rotor diameter of 128 metres.

Recently, Suzlon won a Digital Transformer Award, an Operating Model Master Award and and Talent Accelerator Award at the third Annual 2019 International Data Corporation (IDC) Digital Transformation Awards (DXa).

NES Fircroft and supporting the Renewable Energy industry

We work in partnership with our clients offering a depth of knowledge, a global network of talent and local market expertise that can deliver comprehensive Renewables workforce solutions. Our dedicated Renewable Energy Recruitment teams have an in-depth understanding of the challenges facing the sector and can mine our extensive global database to build you the talent pool you need for the future.

We are also proud to be a member of the Global Wind Energy Council. We deliver workforce solutions for a range of key wind projects worldwide, and we’re excited to work amongst the thousands of GWEC members to continue communicating the benefits of wind power and to support clients and candidates operating within the industry.

If you have a Renewable Energy staffing requirement, get in touch, or search our renewable energy jobs to find your next position.