Green Street: Siemens' offshore success comes at a cost

Siemens-Servicemitarbeiter vor dem Offshore-Windpark Lillgrund zwischen Malmö und Kopenhagen in Schweden. Siemens hat im Projekt Lillgrund 48 Windenergieanlagen des Typs SWT-2.3-93 mit einer Leistung von jeweils 2,3 Megawatt (MW) installiert. Der Windpark mit einer installierten Gesamtleistung von 110 Megawatt (MW) wird vom schwedischen Energieversorger Vattenfall betrieben und wurde im Juni 2008 offiziell in Betrieb genommen. Der Offshore-Windpark Lillgrund produziert genug Strom, um 60.000 schwedische Haushalte zu versorgen.Siemens service personnel in front of the Lillgrund offshore wind farm Lillgrund in the Øresund between Malmö and Copenhagen. For the Lillgrund project Siemens installed 48 SWT-2.3-93 wind power systems each rated at 2.3 megawatts (MW). The wind farm with a total installed capacity of 110 MW is operated by the Swedish utility Vattenfall and officially came on line in June 2008. The Lillgrund offshore wind farm produces enough electrcity to supply 60,000 Swedish households.

Siemens’ latest financial results show that it is not immune to the low margins and strong competition that define the wind turbine market. They also show how its dominance in the offshore sector can be a double-edged sword.

The German company’s renewables business made a loss of €49m ($64m) in the first fiscal quarter, with the red ink spread evenly between the solar, hydro and wind divisions.

Chief financial officer Joe Käser says that not only were wind revenues “somewhat light” at €900m, but that margins were pushed down as the company had to rely more on sales in the highly competitive onshore market rather than in the higher-margin offshore arena.

Much of its wind revenues in the quarter came from onshore sales in the US as developers rushed to build…

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