REpower celebrates the official start-up of the Alpha Ventus offshore wind farm, featuring six of the company's wind turbines. Along with the launch celebration, the company announced the expansion of its production capacities. The company's 5M and 6M units are currently being assembled at productin facilities in Bremerhaven, Germany.

The Bremerhaven production facility can output about 100 units annually at the moment, and while REpower claims additional orders can be placed with the company, even though its capacities are stretched through large collaboration agreements with giants such as RWE Innogy, there seems to be a realistic need for expansion of production capacity. The company is planning to double, or even triple production rate in the next 16-18 months, if the customers show a need for this. Several possibilities for this are in discussion – expanding the Bremerhaven facility, or building a whole new one elsewhere, such as in Great Britain (where GE and Siemens have already shown interest in building production facilities).

REpower's product offer mostly consists of multi-megawatt units aimed at the large-scale offshore wind project market. With the expansion of this wind energy industry sector, it is expected that demand will grow. With various locations where this growth is happening (Western Europe, North America, Southeast Asia) it may be logical for a wind turbine manufacturer to spread out its production facilities to reduce transport costs, and delivery time.

[source: REpower]