Siemens Gamesa is still considering various options for a planned offshore wind factory in the US State of Virginia, chief executive Andreas Nauen confirmed.

It emerged last year that the manufacturer was actively examining plans for a $200m turbine blade factory, when Siemens Gamesa’s North America head of government affairs Abby Watson raised the issue at a legislative hearing, as Recharge reported at the time.

Nauen told financial analysts that plans for a factory in Virginia remain live, but added that various details of the planned plant are still open questions.

“We are planning and preparing and looking at various options of what size, what scope and what processes we do in that factory,” Nauen said at an earnings conference call Friday.

“The final decision for that isn't taken, even though it's, of course, closely linked to the expectations that we have from Virginia, as well as from the customer.”

Preferred supplier for Dominion

US utility Dominion Energy early last year named Siemens Gamesa preferred supplier for its 2.6GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. The OEM has an overall pipeline of US preferred supplier agreements of 4.4GW.

But Nauen added those agreements still need to be turned into firm orders before the company will take a final investment decision.

The timeline for the possible construction of a factory in Virginia will be aligned with that of Dominion’s project, Nauen said.

Dominion in December has told federal US regulators in a construction plan that it plans for a 2024 construction of the giant array off the coast of Virginia – meaning a factory would need to be up and running before that.

Nauen didn’t go into details of what turbine models would be produced in Virginia.

Dominion in 2019 had said it is considering machines with a capacity ranging from 8 to 12MW at the Virginia mega project, but the Siemens Gamesa CEO in May 2020 said the array will feature the company’s largest offshore wind turbine. That would be the OEM’s 14-15MW model.

Siemens Gamesa has already supplied two 6MW units for the 12MW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind pilot, which last year became the second pilot wind farm operating in US waters.

Local content

There are no commercial-scale offshore wind farms in North America yet, but US President Joe Biden last week instructed the Department of Interior (DoI) to identify steps to boost offshore wind energy, although his comments weren’t entirely clear as to what targets he had in mind.

Biden is also promoting a ‘Buy American’ agenda, which is likely to put pressure on European manufacturers to increase the local content in offshore wind turbines.

Nauen said the US offshore wind market is an opportunity for the company, which is also participating in a number of auctions indirectly or together with its customers.

But he also stressed that as the expectation is for tenders to produce a competitive levelised cost of energy (LCOE), the company also needs to balance local content requirements with delivering commercially competitive turbines, adding there will still be a large import share in the US.

“If we want to produce competitively, we also have to use the competitive and best places for that,” Nauen said.

Wind

Siemens Gamesa scoping out landmark east coast offshore wind plant: CEO