Gamesa Focuses on Bigger Turbines,Foreign Markets to Survive as Spanish Wind Market Declines

Gamesa the Spanish Wind Turbine Producer and Wind Farm Operator has faced the worst year of its history in 2010.Like Vestas and Suzlon,2010 has been a cruel year for the Wind Industry in the Western Markets and the WTG Players dependent on those markets.While a few like Clipper have failed to survive as independent entities,Gamesa and others soldier on with little hope of improvement.Vestas has fired hundreds of domestic Danish workers in order to compete with low cost Asian competition while Suzlon,GE are looking to expand into the huge Chinese market.Gamesa too is looking to foreign markets to offset the decline in its home European markets particularly Spain.

Spain is having difficulties with its fiscal deficit and finding it hard to sustain subsidies for Renewable Energy.The Markets in the West have also saturated themselves in terms of growth rates.Though low cost South Korean and Chinese Wind Turbine Producers have not penetrated the Western Markets yet,they could do so in the future.Gamesa which is a Top 5 Wind Energy Company has faced a turbulent year with the owners selling stakes and the share price taking a huge dive.Gamesa is one of the worst performing Wind Energy Stocks in 2010.Gamesa is looking to restructure its operations and concentrating on the offshore wind market by focusing on higher megawatt turbines.Gamesa is leading a massive Spanish Research Effort to develop a colossal 15 MW Turbine meant for the fast growing offshore wind sector.But this is a long term plan with 2020 set as the target for the complete development of this new Turbine.Meanwhile Gamesa has become the target of takeover speculation by one of the bigger Chinese Wind Turbine players like Sinovel,Goldwind etc.Gamesa has seen its revenue fall by 28% and profits by  71% with Operating Margins of 4-5%.Things don’t look too good for 2011 either though Orders have started ticking up.