Opening the blade – Newspaper Kommersant No. 53 (7498) dated 03/29/2023

Rosatom will invest more than 2 billion rubles. into the production of blades for our own wind farms (WPPs). The plant will be located in Ulyanovsk on the territory of the former enterprise of the Danish Vestas, which left the Russian Federation. Rosatom will launch the plant in 2025 and completely abandon GE blades, which gave “seriously low prices.” Other companies will also want to buy Rosatom’s blades, analysts believe, but warn of the need to replace expensive imported components, which will affect the cost of Russian blades.

Rosatom will start producing blades for wind farms in the Ulyanovsk region, said on Tuesday, March 28, the head of the state corporation Alexei Likhachev at the Composites Without Borders forum. The enterprise will satisfy all demand in the Russian Federation and will actively go for export, he said. The production will be located on the territory of Aerocomposite JSC (part of the United Aircraft Corporation), where the blades were produced by the Danish Vestas, which left the Russian Federation. The European company tore up the SPIC and closed the plant after the outbreak of hostilities by the Russian Federation in Ukraine.

The plant will start mass production in 2025.

The volume of investments may exceed 2 billion rubles. without budget subsidies, Alexander Tyunin, head of Yumatex (composite division of Rosatom), explained to reporters.

The enterprise will annually produce 360–380 blades for its own wind farm projects (built by NovaWind, a division of Rosatom). The total portfolio of NovaWind is 1.7 GW of wind farms until 2027, of which 780 MW have already been built. This year, NovaWind plans to launch 255 MW, the company told Kommersant.

Rosatom has been thinking about launching the production of blades for a long time, but decided to localize the wind turbine of the Dutch Lagerwey (owned by the German Enercon) at Atommash (production of 300 MW per year). NovaWind bought blades from the Indian company LM (owned by the American GE). Tyunin said that Umatex had developed its own 51-metre-long blade more than two years ago, but the project was not launched, in part, because of the “very favorable conditions” of the giant Indian supplier, which gave “seriously low prices.” The former head of NovaWind, Alexander Korchagin, told Kommersant in 2021 that the blades have a low export potential: about 70% of world needs are covered by Asia.

The start of the project to localize the blades is “a necessary condition for the long-term stabilization of the supply chains of all key nodes,” says NovaWind.

They emphasize that in-depth localization has ceased to be a condition for entering the renewable energy support program, now it is necessary to ensure business stability: “in this context, we consider it acceptable to increase the level of localization to 120 points (now it is 87–102 points).”

“Taking into account the readiness of the site in Ulyanovsk, investments in the amount of about 2 billion rubles. should be more than enough,” says Kimal Yusupov, co-founder of the NGO B&B Industries. In his opinion, the bulk of investments will need to be invested in equipment – primarily in molds (forms for the production of blades). If third-party customers turn to Rosatom with a different type of wind turbine, then a different mold and a different technology will be needed. Tooling can be purchased from friendly countries or made to vendor’s drawings, he says.

The production of blades requires expensive imported components (for example, pultrusion and resins), under the conditions of the imposed restrictions, the depth of localization will need to be increased and the component base will be produced in the Russian Federation, which may lead to an increase in cost, says Mr. Yusupov.

If the Rosatom plant is the only one in the Russian Federation, then a queue will line up for them, Anatoly Kopylov, general director of Akta Consult, believes: “Everyone will need blades: both for the new construction of wind farms and for the repair of existing stations using foreign equipment.” At the same time, Vestas still has equipment in the Russian Federation, which can probably be useful for Rosatom when launching the enterprise, Anatoly Kopylov continues. Vestas Rus (controlled by Vestas) filed a bankruptcy lawsuit, creditors are also suing Vestas Manufacturing Rus (controlled by Vestas), which means that the procedure for selling their assets may soon go through. But Vestas equipment will obviously have to be fought for, the expert warns.

Polina Smertina