Siemens’s wind energy costs to drop 5%-10% Y/Y on production change - report

Jul 9, 2012 - Felix Ferlemann, head of the wind energy division of German engineering group Siemens AG (ETR:SIE), told weekly WirtschaftsWoche the firm expects the costs related to its wind energy activities to start declining by 5% to 10% a year due to a shift to mass production and platform strategies.

The division, which reported a loss in the first quarter of 2012, is expected to book a profit for the full year, he added.

Siemens currently manufactures customised individual items at relatively high costs. In the future, similarly to automobiles production, it wants to assemble wind systems at the same platform and thus reduce its development and production costs.

Ferlemann said further that four basic platforms are planned -- one for offshore and one for onshore facilities as well as one for small and one for large new gearless wind turbines.

As the weekly wrote in its Saturday’s issue, Siemens has already begun constructing the assembly lines for the smaller wind systems with a capacity of 2.3 MW and for the offshore turbines.

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