German wind turbine supplier Flender expands India ops as geopolitical hedge

Chennai: Key wind energy supplier Flender India has expanded its manufacturing presence in the country to cater to the growing appetite from the domestic markets and to hedge against geopolitical risks. Andreas Evertz, group CEO of the Germany-based Flender, which makes gearboxes, generators and components, said the company has increased its output capacity from 800 megawatts to over 16 gigawatts to cater to the original equipment makers in India and exporting to markets such US, Australia and in Europe. He said the company has made investments of over 100 million euros in the last four years and continues to invest in component making and building the local ecosystem in India.
When asked about the impact of geopolitical tensions and weaponisation of the supply chain, Evertz said the company has a diversified supply chain spread across three hubs in Germany, China and India. "In times where the possibility is there to source from any place, we are focusing on what are the cheapest and the best places. We have capacity potential at other places and could use that, in times of disruption," he said. He further added that the company is working to improve resilience with capacity expansion in India, but said there are dependencies in certain areas, such as commodities. "Flender India is focusing on making parts close to the assembly. We have also doubled testing capacity in India. We are bullish on domestic adoption and demand continues to rise. There is a strong push and pull effect from the local Indian market. We also think there is still very big growth for India to become an export hub," he said. At present, a little more than 50% of its output is geared towards exports. It has now added a 13.5 MW test rig, touted as the country's largest gearbox testing rig, primarily focusing on large offshore turbines for export markets. It said the rigs would help shorten the development times for new gearboxes for the local market. Flender has assembly and testing facilities in Chennai, Walaja, closer to global and domestic OEM facilities and a parts facility at Kharagpur.