Technological sovereignty in wind energy postponed for several years

Russia will be able to achieve technological sovereignty in wind energy in 2026-2027. This assessment was given on March 3 at a briefing by the director of the Russian Wind Industry Association (RAWI) Igor Bryzgunov.

“I would predict technological sovereignty in wind energy <..> through the purchase of a license [на выпуск оборудования для ветростанций – ВЭС], and this is how it is developing today, in 2026-2027,” he said. At the same time, the launch of the production of wind turbines of domestic production using imported technologies, according to Bryzgunov, is possible by 2025.

The “critical” components for a wind farm, he says, are the generator, blades, tower, electronics (inverters, transformers, etc.).

The Russian wind energy industry, after the strengthening of anti-Russian sanctions due to the start of the NWO in Ukraine, faced problems. Investors and technology partners from unfriendly countries began to leave the country. For example, in March 2022, the Danish Vestas announced its decision to suspend the construction of wind farms in Russia. The company also closed a plant in Ulyanovsk (Vestas Manufacturing Rus), which produced blades for wind farms. In addition, this created difficulties for the implementation of Fortum’s projects (controlled by the Finnish Fortum), for which Vestas Rus (a subsidiary of Vestas) supplied equipment. The EU sanctions also closed the possibility of supplying turbines of European manufacturers for windmills to the Russian Federation.

As a result, already in the spring of 2022, the Russian Ministry of Energy postponed the next competition for new renewable energy projects for a year. Solar and wind stations, as well as small hydropower plants, are being built under a preferential investment return program at the expense of additional payments from consumers of the wholesale energy market. The volume of the current stage of the program (2025-2035) was about 350 billion rubles. The first RES program for 2014–2024 completed. Until 2024, it is planned to introduce 5.4 GW of new RES capacities under the program.

“We in the association from April to November last year researched [российский] the market for the production of components for wind turbines, we went through about 500 enterprises and identified 40. And they produce all the critical components, with the exception of the blades, ”says Bryzgunov. But even for the production of blades for windmills, according to him, Russia has “all the competencies and personnel.”

Bryzgunov noted that with the release of wind farms, it was possible to achieve greater localization. But foreign partners, he said, “with difficulty took Russian enterprises as suppliers.” “Own on-site production has been established in those components that cannot be transported from the word at all, because no one will carry a wind turbine tower thousands of kilometers away. Therefore, towers for wind farms were produced in Russia as part of a joint venture (JV Severstal and Spanish Windar Renovables – Vedomosti),” he added.

At the same time, Bryzgunov did not answer the question about competitiveness in export markets. “Let’s see. Now there is a lot of work on the Russian market too,” he said, adding that access to export markets “is the horizon of 2030.”

According to the forecasts of the Chairman of the Board of the RAWI Sergey Morozov, by 2035 the capacity of wind farms in Russia can grow from the current more than 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 wind farms – 2.3 GW. In 2020, about 840 MW of WPP capacities were commissioned in the country, in 2021 – more than 1 GW, in 2022 – 263 MW, follows from its annual reports.

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%.

Kimal Yusupov, co-founder, development director of the NGO B&B Industries, considers the deadlines given by the director of the RAWI to be “quite realistic.” But it is necessary not to buy licenses again, which “hooks Russian enterprises on the hook” of foreign technologies, as it has already happened, but “to develop our own, do R&D and create design bureaus,” he believes. According to his estimates, it is possible to achieve the highest localization of wind turbines of 120 points (almost 100% according to the methodology of the Ministry of Industry and Trade) by 2027. “There are a number of complex components that need a systematic approach – one of the examples is a gearbox,” he is sure.

The easiest way, according to Yusupov, will be to establish in Russia the production of domestic towers for wind turbines. “There are already ready-made production facilities – the Vetrostroydetal enterprise and VRS Towers (an enterprise of the joint venture of Severstal and Windar Renovables. – Vedomosti) in Taganrog,” he points out.

Yulia Miroshnikova, Deputy Director of Practice for Work with Companies in the Energy Sector at Kept, considers the timeframe for 2026-2027 to be “realistic, if we talk about buying a license.” “When the issue of purchasing licenses and supplying the necessary equipment is resolved, then the localization of production will be possible both at existing sites and at new ones,” the expert says. She adds that such production facilities are usually not built from scratch, but fit into existing industrial complexes – for example, as the Novavind production (part of “Rosatom“).

Yusupov believes that when buying a license or supplying components for wind farms, the partners “almost certainly will be the Chinese.” Miroshnikova also points to possible cooperation with Chinese as well as Indian companies.

At the same time, the components, according to her, will be supplied by “second and third tier companies,” since the leaders of the top 10 OEM (original equipment manufacturers) list have joined the anti-Russian sanctions, including the Chinese Goldwind. “On the other hand, the Sani company, little known to us in the wind energy industry, is now actively probing the Russian market,” adds Miroshnikova. And the number of such partners (little known in the world, but strong in their niche), in her opinion, will grow. Also, Russian companies, in her opinion, will have to choose “unified” solutions – that is, components (for example, blades) that can be used on any wind turbine of any manufacturer.