The exchanges were extraordinarily rewardingSo in Ovalie all is not well in the best worldsFear of new social plansIt is a big questionIn compliance with Community rules of course This trilogy does not resolve the difficulty60 dollar as in spring 2008 and was on a return to 1The crisis has certainly stretched budgetsHowever the France 2010 budget to devote that 0SavignysurOrge glue perfectly to our concept5 of the capital and the voting rights of CADCAMA very serious academic study of Cambridge declared that Ringkobing, small port located at the bottom of a fjord to the West of the Denmark, is the city you live the happiest in Europe. With its pavée place, Church of the 17th century and its maisons in red brick, the town is charming, but what the motivations of researchers who have elected him. Unless they have a weakness for wind energy... Because Ringkobing houses, with the nearby village of Lem, the favorite company of the Danes, the first world manufacturer of wind turbines, Vestas. Born on the shores of the North Sea, "number one of the modern energy", as it is now its President, Ditlev Engel, example of the struggle of the madmen of the wind over the last thirty years.
The company, of a family group specialized in agricultural machinery, produced its first wind farm in the 1970s, exported its first machines in California as early as 1979, and its Green engineers finally imposed in their countries, which now takes 20 of its electricity and the bulk of its revenues from the exploitation of the wind.
In the meantime, the company has nearly died twice. In 1986, first, when the US abandons tax incentives for wind energy adopted in the wake of the oil shocks. Then in 2005, after the merger with Neg Micon compatriot. Commands raining down, but Vestas haven't been able to honor them, become entangled the brushes in the merger and faces heavy expenditure to repair defects at Horns Reef, the first wind farm in the open sea, a technological feat, but which, as any prototype, wiped the casts. In May of this year, Ditlev Engel, former boss of the multinational painting Hempel, is called to the rescue. The new President, barely age of forty years, having the company of a plan called "the will to win" and promises that Vestas return at a rate of 10 profit. "I discovered a rough diamond, an incredible technology, but a terrible loss of self-confidence", remembers great thin man, shoed glasses square, who resembles Batman version city. The issue Moving from a culture of start-up, where all efforts were focused on the technological challenge, that of an industrial undertaking concerned of its profitability. Clearly, leaving adolescence to adulthood.
A spectacular recovery
Evolution is painful: in 2006, that all see as the rescuer of the last chance, "batman engel", announces annual losses higher than the 1 billion kroner, despite a new jump in orders for 52! Some shareholders are strangling of rage. But the country of the wind, they eventually accept this new storm and recover money from the pot. Well their takes.
In 2008, Vestas announces record results, with a profit of EUR 511 million for sales of 6 billion, an increase of 1 billion by 2007 period. And, this year, the group plans a new jump in sales of over $ 1 billion, while promising an operating income of $ 850 to 900 million, despite the financial crisis! Side in Copenhagen since 1998, Vestas has returned the value preferred the Norse, tied with H & M and Ericsson, just behind Nokia. April 28, the Group has raised EUR 800 million of fresh capital in one day, without any difficulty.
A Ringkobing, port plant keeps the fragrance of the time of the inventors. A tower, the pod with a rotor and blade... By far, nothing seems complicated in a wind turbine. And yet... Shop in shop, pods, unveil their complexity: real technological heart of turbines, stuffed electronics, they meet no less than 8,000 components, almost as an engine for Airbus, and weigh approximately 80 tons. On the 39.000 turbines installed by Vestas dans le world, 14.300 are controlled remote streaming from a control room located in Aarhus. Before the multiples workstations where employees semblent hold only the secrets of these complex networks of steel and cables, Michael Holm, in charge of the communication of Vestas, apologizes: "our manufacturing processes are still not automated because for a long time, the market was not large enough to make heavy investments in robotization."
Research with Boeing agreement
The plant resembles, in more traditional version, of an aircraft engine manufacturer. And this is not a chance if Vestas has just concluded a research with Boeing agreement. "Our challenges are similar: increase the power to save a maximum of weight", explains Ditlev Engel. Thus the last 3 megawatts (MW) turbine model represents a gain of 50 power for a weight reduced by 10. Indeed, Ditlev Engel did not qualify Vestas of industrial enterprise but of "IT", the company of technological innovation. Even if the company consumes each year, nothing that the United States, 200,000 tons of steel, the equivalent of two Golden Bridge.
Produce more megawatts with lighter machines, such is the key to competitiveness. For twenty-five years, wind power has multiplied by 100, so 500 modern windmills would be sufficient to produce as much electricity as the prot. today in the Denmark. But now, the power gains are limited by the size, prevents the constructor. "Beyond 3 MW of power, the size of the turbines would become so important that it would prohibit their transport, explains Nicolas Wolff, the pattern of Vestas in France." The transport of a wind turbine, convoy of 10 trucks stretching for hundreds of metres, is already a logistical puzzle!
A Lem, blades, manufactured lightened and reinforced with steel of carbon and glass fibre, seem to be huge. Here also, the technology is strict: each weighs 8 tons, but a difference of more than 2 kg between the three same wind turbine blades is not tolerated, failing which, once hoisted in the air, they would produce a movement also chopped as a subdued engine. And for splitting the bise, their stops is also spiked as a razor blade, boast their fabricants!
A Ringkobing, Ditlev Engel confirms that the time of the bricolos of the wind is gone: "I have deliberately chosen the slogan"Number one of the modern energy"to show that we are engaged in a struggle for power, the same as gas or oil." I return to the US where I studied the installation of 130 turbines on a site, what produce as much as a coal plant. Do you know that between Texas and Dakota wind deposit is so good that five States could only provide up to 30 of the electricity in the country
"It big".
With its air of first of the class, Ditlev Engel seems reasonable. But when it comes to defending the wind - "competitive, clean, reliable, predictable, autonomous, removable, recyclable!"-, he has forgotten any chosen. And to explain that with a power network intelligent, interconnected and modernized, the wind could cover 80 of European electricity needs. "You see great." Wind energy can be developed to its proper measure with better electrical networks. Today, it is as if it developed Internet on the old telephone network. The President of the United States understood, providing 35 billion of investments for the modernisation of the electrical network. "A worthwhile investment in the light of the $ 700 billion cost each year oil imports," enthuses.And if in doubt persisted on wind virtues, he wears the blow: "It is the only energy do not use water, a resource shortage will stop to widen with climate warming."
Regardless of situational hazards, credit, overheating of the vertes values crisis... The President of Vestas is chosen to motto a Chinese proverb: "not look at the waves, looking for the current.The wind is currently less than 2 of world electricity production and is expected to reach 10 in 20 years. End of 2008, it dominated the energy investments in Europe and the United States, with approximately 8,000 MW installed on two continents. And China must invest at least as much a year to achieve its goal of 100,000 MW of installed capacity by 2020. For good take aware, Vestas has invested since 2006 over 2.3 billion euros in the construction of factories in China and the United States. A minimum so that the small Danish Ringkobing, born in Heath deserted from Jutland, keeps his rank to competitors who are more the "garage players" time pioneers, but multinationals like Siemens and General Electric.
