Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas is heading back to India after a four-year break. The company will discuss its plans for the market at meetings scheduled for September.

Vestas first entered India in 1989, but then quit the market in 2012.

It made a soft re-entry in 2014, but none of its turbines were installed in 2015 or 16.

Now the company has major orders from two wind energy companies.

Blade runners
The company is building a blade plant in Gujarat, which will produce India’s first locally produced carbon-fibre blades.

Carbon-fibre blades are stronger and lighter than conventional glass-fibre blades.

Producing the blades locally will be less expensive and cut transport costs, allowing Vestas to pass the savings on to its local customers.

Healthy set of results
Meanwhile, Vestas has announced revenue of 19 billion kroner for the second quarter of 2016 – a 46 percent increase on the same period last year that has led to it upgrading its outlook for the year.

Orders of 1,790 MW over the period boosted the value of its wind turbine order backlog to 61.0 billion kroner as of 30 June, while it has service agreements worth 73.7 billion in the future.

EBIT increased from 1.89 to 2.97 billion and its free cash flow almost doubled from 1.36 to 2.46 million, which might explain why the cash-rich company has announced a share buy-back programme that could see it spending up to 2.984 billion kroner to acquire up to 10 percent of its shares between August 18 and December 30.

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