During the second half of 2016, global wind turbine orders from 11 vendors totaled nearly 15 GW, and leading the pack was Vestas, which reported 6,445.15 MW, according to a new report from Navigant Research.
Navigant Research tracked all publicly announced wind turbine orders between July and December in 24 different countries. The latest version of the firm’s “Wind Turbine Order Tracker” reports a total of 14,743.9 MW of sold capacity.
With its total, Vestas sold nearly 3,000 MW more than it did in the first half of 2016, the report points out.
“Wind farm developers are becoming more willing to explore regions of less-than-ideal wind resources, and wind turbine manufacturers are using larger rotors and higher hub heights to maximize capacity factors in these regions,” says Adam Wilson, research analyst with Navigant Research. “Vestas is a good example of this: The company’s average turbine rating for orders received in the second half of 2016 decreased from 2.96 MW to 2.8 MW, while average rotor diameter actually increased slightly to 114.5 meters from 112.7 meters.”
With 2,011.0 MW of announced orders, Gamesa came in second place behind Vestas, says Navigant. Thanks to four large offshore wind orders, MHI Vestas – a joint venture of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Vestas – came in third place.
Regionally, Asia Pacific led the pack: It showed an increase of 1,800 MW over the first half of the year, thanks to strong showings in both India and Australia.
Citing a “strong finish” for the U.S., second-place North America, with 3,688.1 MW, narrowly beat out Europe, which placed in third with 3,522.8 MW of disclosed turbine order capacity. Despite more than doubling its order total from the first half of the year, Latin America came in fourth place. Lastly, the Middle East and Africa took fifth, the report concludes.
