Onshore wind turbine manufacturers navigating a challenging business environment
Even as onshore wind additions grew to reach a four year high of 56 GW in 2019, the turbine supply landscape consolidated further around a handful of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). By the end of last year, the five largest OEMs had delivered roughly 65% of the world's onshore wind installed base and, with few exceptions, continue to dominate future orderbooks as well. However, challenging market conditions characterized by auction driven pressure to reduce LCOEs and increasing competition with both conventional and competing clean energy technologies are putting the onshore wind manufacturers under a lot of pressure. To solidify their market leadership, the five largest OEMs are relying on the following strategic levers:
- Regional diversification: Globally spread out
supply footprints have enabled major OEMs to hedge demand risks in
any single market, some of whom have established a presence in over
80 countries as of year-end 2019. However, Mainland Chinese OEMs
enjoy strong orderbooks despite having little to no international
presence on account of the domestic market size.
- Technology innovation and product modularity:
Instead of a one-size-fits-all strategy, OEMs are focusing on
delivering site optimized turbines requiring them to step up the
pace of product innovation while maintaining broad product
portfolios. Modular platform architecture has helped them enhance
customizability, shorten time to market, and innovate at low
costs.
- Supply chain optimization: Manufacturing
presence of OEMs is reshuffling in response to a variety of factors
including local content requirements, cost pressures, demand
bottlenecks, and changing technology needs. Manufacturing
strategies are also evolving in favor of increasing outsourcing as
manufacturers try to keep themselves nimble and minimize market
entry and exit costs to maintain agility in a very dynamic and
diversified market.
- New businesses and revenue streams: Cost pressures have narrowed turbine margins forcing OEMs to hunt for a path back to profitability. To achieve this goal, suppliers will focus on growing their more profitable services (O&M) business, boosting margins on turbine sales through platform modularity and supply chain optimization, and creating new revenue streams including analytics driven services and project development.
Figure 1: Onshore wind turbine manufacturers navigating a
challenging business environment
For more information and analysis on the wind power market, please visit our Global Power and Renewables and Clean Energy Technology pages.
Indra Mukherjee is an Analyst for Gas, Power, and Energy Futures at IHS Markit.
Posted 02 June 2020
This article was published by S&P Global Commodity Insights and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.