Moventas Invests in Wind Turbine Gear Production, Hires New Executives

Moventas invested approximately 115 million euros in a new wind turbine gear factory in central Finland. Construction will begin in fall 2007 and the building is slated for completion in 2008. Overall production capacity will be taken on-stream progressively throughout 2009.

According to the company’s press release, the new factory will double Moventas’ wind turbine gear production capacity and follows a 100 million euro investment that was announced in February.

The current investment creates about 100 new jobs. An additional 200 new production employees will be required for the new factory.

Since the 22,500 m² facility will be constructed new, the factory can be optimized for megawatt-scale wind turbines. On a global basis, the wind power market faces a 25% yearly growth.

Moventas recently reported nearly 100 million euros of wind turbine gear orders. The company has signed agreements worth 97 million euros with REpower, WinWinD and Dewind.

The power range of the gear units varies from 660 kW to 3.0 MW. Gear units are planetary-helical, weighing 4.5–20 tons with the exception of the planetary gear solution developed in cooperation with WinWinD. The units will be delivered to turbine manufacturers in Germany, India, Finland and the United States

The company also announced the appointment of Henry Böhling as vice president of research and development and quality, Kari Reini as vice president of the Karkkila factory and Olavi Rahkonen as vice president of expansion projects.

Böhling will be responsible for global industrial gears R&D support and coordination as well as managing industrial gears R&D in Finland.

Reini will be responsible for operational management of the Karkkila factory.