BW Communities

Research Is The Key

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[After a series of blade damages in its wind farms over the past three years, Suzlon Energy is launching new wind turbines. The S 9X machines — an improved version of S-88 machines — will give better power output even at inconsistent wind speeds, John O'Halloran, president-technology and managing director at the German Research and Development Centre of Suzlon Energy told Businessworld. The fifth-largest wind turbine maker in the world, which posted profits for the fourth quarter of 2010-11 after successive losses since December 2009, has developed the turbine after two years of research and prototyping. Since the developed and emerging economies are pitching for green energy, analysts see a large market for Suzlon's new turbine. "But itshould ensure the product quality meets its credentials and claims," an analyst adds. Suzlon has already started marketing the S-95 DFIG (2.1-MW) model of the S 9X series and will launch another model of the S97 series early next year, says O'Halloran, who joined Suzlon in October 2009 from US-based Cummins Inc., where he was the executive director. Suzlon was mainly dependent on its S-88 (2.1 MW) machines, which it installed in 11 countries since 1995. These account for 4,100 MW  of its total 15,000 MW installations worldwide. These blades had bled Suzlon in the past, it had to spend over $100 million over the past 2-3 years to implement a total blade retrofitting programme across its S-88 machines. Many project developers in the US and Latin America had complained that blades of some of the turbines had developed cracks. "We are learning. Now the stress is on developing better technologies that can withstand weather and challenges in any geography", says Robin Banerjee, Suzlon's chief financial officer. Suzlon is one of the few original equipment manufacturers of wind turbines with its own blade testing facility. The blades used in the earlier machines were made in India and were installed in geographies ranging from extreme hot to extreme cold conditions. Suzlon employs about 400 engineers for R&D and maintenance of its machines. It has three R&D centres at Hamburg, Berlin and Rostock in Germany and one each at Pune, Aarhus in Denmark, Hengelo in The Netherlands and Tianjin in China. But, according to experts, Suzlon has a long way to go to match the technical expertise of leaders in the industry. It sells relatively smaller onshore power plants in the range of 600 KW to 2.1 MW. Suzlon's German subsidiary REpower sells rather larger machines with rated power capacities ranging from 2.05 MW to 6.15 MW. Its two models — 6M and 5M are also installed as offshore machines. In contrast, industry leaders have a much larger portfolio of products. Denmark-based Vestas has 16 models of on-shore machines (850 KV to 3 MW) and offshore machines (3MW to 7 MW), including giant turbines like the V-164 model whose blade diameter is the size of three football fields. Gamesa offers four different families of machines and is developing two families of new offshore turbines (the G11X-5.0 MW and the G14X of 6 MW-7 MW). When the outside wind is strong, Suzlon realises a crucial factor in its journey — R&D. (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 11-07-2011)