Vestas announced a reorganization of the company's activities in order to reduce fixed costs by more than EUR 150 million, which is to reach full effect near the end of 2012. Most of the cost cutting measures include streamlining of support functions in the company, but also through closing of factories in accordance with the state of demand in the wind energy market in the coming months.
Vestas has closed 2011 with several orders for its wind turbines, amounting to about 560 MW of capacity. The orders from from various markets, including Pakistan, the company's first in this Asian country. Still, even though the company has had a successful year in terms of order intake, totalling about 7.4 GW, the revenue for 2011 still had to be downgraded by about EUR 400 million to be about EUR 6 billion. The company also encountered some unexpected costs in its development activities involving the V112-3.0 MW and the GridStreamer technology for the 2 MW family of turbines.
Tata Power has entered into a shares purchase agreement with BP Alternative Holdings for the acquisition of BP's 51% of shares in the Tata BP Solar joint venture. This effectively puts Tata Power as the sole owner of Tata BP Solar.
SunPower has entered into a definitive agreement with Total for the acquisition of Tenesol, a wholly owned subsidiary of Total. SunPower is paying USD 164.5 million in cash for this acquisition, while at the same time Total will purchase 18.6 million shares of SunPower common stock. Once Tenesol is in ownership of SunPower, Total will own about 66% of SunPower's common shares.
China Three Gorges and EDP have entered into a strategic partnership, as the Portuguese government approved the purchase of a 21.35% stake in EDP by the largest Chinese clean energy group. The two companies will combine resources in order to become global leaders in renewable energy production.
Siemens and Shanghai Electric have signed a strategic alliance agreement, for two new joint ventures, for the Chinese wind energy market, aiming to better serve the needs of one of the largest and fastest growing wind energy markets in the world. Each of the new JV's will be in 49% ownership of Siemens, while the remaining 51% will be owned by Shanghai Electric.
Areva expects up to 300 MW of contracts for selling solar thermal energy systems by the end of 2011, according to Jayesh Goyal, vice-president of Areva NA sales. Emerging opportunities for solar energy development in various parts of the world, such as Australia, India, the Middle East and the US, may yield the company's solar energy division, Areva Solar, as much as 450 MW of orders by the end of 2012.
Trina Solar announced Singapore as the choice of location of the solar PV product manufacturer's regional headquarters. The new offices will serve as an administrative, sales, project development, R&D, logistics and purchasing operations center for the South East Asia and Australia regions (initially) including Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Korea. Additionally, the HQ will also cover the Middle East and South Africa.
China Ming Yang Wind Power (MY) has signed a development financing cooperation agreement and a planning agreement with China Development Bank (CDB), through the company's subsidiary Guangdong Ming Yang Wind Power Industry Group. CDB could support MY's strategic and financial planning with as much as USD 5 billion. This includes financing, loans and credit facilities until 2015.
Toshiba Corporation and Meidensha Corporation have signed a memorandum of undestanding on the formation of a business and technology alliance between the two companies, to support their respective small and medium sized hydropower plant system businesses. Under the MoU, Toshiba is to supply its hydropower turbines and provide service support, while Meidensha would be supplying generators and corresponding service support for that aspect of the collaboration.
