In the Ulyanovsk region, the production of blades for windmills is opened

In the Ulyanovsk region, the production of domestic blades for wind power plants (WPP) will be created. This was announced on March 28 by the CEO of the state corporation “Rosatom» Alexei Likhachev in Moscow at the Composites Without Borders forum. “We are [губернатором Ульяновской области] Alexey Yurievich [Русских] We announce that we are creating a new joint production of wind blades in the Ulyanovsk region,” said Likhachev.

Director General of Yumatex (division of advanced technologies and materials of Rosatom) Alexander Tyunin explained that the domestic blade based on composites was developed “more than two years ago”: “This is a full-fledged development of our own blade 51 meters [длиной] for the Novavind wind turbine, a division of Rosatom that develops wind energy.

For various reasons, during these two years the project did not enter the investment phase, and one of the reasons the top manager called the “very preferential” conditions of the Indian blade supplier Lam.

The Ulyanovsk region, according to him, will not be a shareholder of the production, but there are “other potential interested parties”, among potential partners there is also a Russian company (Tyunin refused to name the name).

Production, according to the top manager, will be created on the site of the Danish company Vestas that left Russia, investments will amount to about 2.3 billion rubles. The company will employ about 400 people. The company, according to the head of Yumatex, plans to produce about 360-380 blades per year, serial deliveries will begin in 2025. Novavind will be the starting consumer, then the circle of customers will expand.

Vestas left Russia along with many other foreign companies after the start of the NWO in Ukraine in February 2022 and the strengthening of anti-Russian sanctions. As a result, the Ulyanovsk enterprise Vestas Manufacturing Rus, which had been producing composite blades for wind farms since 2018, was mothballed, and the team was disbanded. The departure of Vestas created problems for the Fortum energy company (controlled by the Finnish Fortum), for which he acted as a technology partner.

In early March 2023, the director of the Russian Wind Industry Association (RAWI), Igor Bryzgunov, said that technological sovereignty in wind energy could be achieved by Russia in 2026-2027. He noted that the “critical components” for a wind farm are the blades, tower, generator and electronics (inverters, transformers, etc.). Bryzgunov noted that the association “went through” about 500 Russian enterprises and chose 40 that produce “all critical components, with the exception of blades.”

As an example, he named VRS Towers – a joint venture between Severstal and the Spanish Windar Renovables, which produced towers for wind turbines. Technology transfer was also to be carried out within the Red Wind company (JV Novavinda and the Dutch manufacturer of wind turbines Lagerwey). Established in 2017, the JV was responsible for marketing, sales, turnkey deliveries of wind turbines and after-sales support. At the beginning of March, 2023 Interfax reported with reference to the reporting under RAS “Novavinda” that the company in July terminated contracts with Red Wind BV in July, 2022 after introduction of sanctions. This led to significant losses from operating activities, resulting in a net loss of Novavind for the year amounted to almost 630 million rubles. against a profit of 300 million rubles. in 2021

The technology, the production of which is planned to be launched in Ulyanovsk]has already been localized in Russia at the aforementioned Vestas plant, says Yulia Miroshnikova, deputy director of the Kept power industry analytics group: “Some adaptation will be required [предприятия], but it’s not the same as starting from scratch.” An acceptable price for blades for wind farms will be provided, in her opinion, only “over time and subject to stable demand.”

According to the Chairman of the Board of RAWI Sergey Morozov, if the manufacturer can become a “multi-brand manufacturer” of blades, owning the intellectual property for production, it will be possible to talk about the export potential of the products. “Until now, many Asian countries use blades made in India. For our closest neighbors (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan), delivery from the Ulyanovsk region looks preferable,” he told Vedomosti.

If we talk about wind farms of the “multimegawatt class”, then power plants with such units in Russia were built as part of the first state program to support the construction of solar and wind power plants (CDA RES 1.0), which guarantees investors a stable profitability through payments from consumers of the wholesale energy market, says Miroshnikova. The CSA RES 1.0 program is being implemented in 2014-2024, at the moment the selection of projects has been completed.

Miroshnikova recalls that under the first program, it was planned to put into operation almost 3.5 GW of “green” generation, but in fact 2.1 GW was put into operation. “If we take into account the projects of only large players, such as Enel (it also left Russia, having sold its assets to Lukoil and the investment fund of Gazprombank. – Vedomosti), Novavind and Fortum, then now in varying degrees of readiness projects for approximately 1 GW of installed capacity are awaiting implementation,” the expert notes.

The second program to support the construction of solar and wind power plants (CDA RES 2.0) is designed for 2025-2035. The volume of the new stage of the program is about 350 billion rubles. Miroshnikova believes that for the second stage of the CSA RES program, “there is a lot of uncertainty now and it can still change a lot in the next year and a half.”

Earlier, RAWI predicted that by 2035 the capacity of wind power plants in Russia could grow from 2 GW to 8 GW. The total installed capacity of power plants of the Unified Energy System (UES) of Russia as of January 1, 2023 amounted to 247.6 GW, follows from the data of the System Operator (SO UES; power system dispatcher), of which only 2.3 GW are accounted for by wind farms.

According to the Association for the Development of Renewable Energy (ARVE), the share of installed RES generation capacity in the energy system of the Russian Federation, including solar and wind stations, at the end of 2022 was at the level of 2.3%. At the same time, their actual cumulative output does not exceed 1%.