After having grown its business by 33% last year, German wind energy plant producer Nordex (Hamburg; www.nordex-online.de) in late May touted plans to invest EUR 50m in a new blade strategy between 2014 and 2016. Half the money is to go towards new and additional moulds at its main plant in Rostock / Germany, where the company also intends to build a new hall. The investment comes in response to strong demand for the group’s wind turbines, with rotors of an above-average size.

Group CEO Jürgen Zeschky said that in future, the Rostock plant will focus on producing the “most modern and largest rotor blades” – specifically the “NR85.5” and “NR65.5” blades used in the “N131/3000” “N117/3000” and “N117/2400” turbines. The financial injection will see Nordex revamp the plant to make it suitable for manufacture of large products and moulds.

While the group is eager to raise output at its own plant, it said it remains committed to covering only 20-30% of its requirements internally. After all, more than 80% of the turbines Nordex installs for customers are used in countries outside of Germany. For this reason, the remaining EUR 25m will be invested in a long-term “built-to-print” strategy with international partners, aimed at harnessing cost advantages for their production facilities.

In late 2013, Nordex entered into an agreement with Turkey's TPI Kompozit Kanat Sanayi ve Ticaret (Izmir; www.tpikompozit.com.tr/) for the manufacture of rotor blades measuring 58.5 m in length – see Plasteurope.com of 21.10.2013.