Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) — Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world’s
second-largest maker of wind turbines, will seek to increase
cooperation with Japanese companies to expand the market, Chief
Executive Officer Ditlev Engel said.
“We are very happy to share all the lessons we have
learned and the knowledge we have gained,”Engel said today in
an interview in Tokyo, without elaborating.
Japan, which lags behind countries such as China and the
U.S. in wind installations, is seeking to generate more clean
energy after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Japan was
ranked 13th in the word with 2,614 megawatts of installed wind
capacity at the end of last year, according to the Global Wind
Energy Council.
Vestas, based in Aarhus, Denmark, and Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries Ltd., Japan’s largest heavy-machinery maker, are in
talks to develop an 8-megawatt turbine, Vestas Chief Financial
Officer Dag Andresen said in November.
Engel said it is important to extend cooperation with other
Japanese companies to bring the Asian nation’s wind industry to
the “next level.” He declined to comment on talks with
Mitsubishi Heavy.
Vestas is halfway through a two-year push to cut its
workforce by about 30 percent to 16,000 as it seeks to return to
profitability following two years of losses.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Chisaki Watanabe in Tokyo at
cwatanabe5@bloomberg.net;
Masumi Suga in Tokyo at
msuga@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net;
Jason Rogers at
jrogers73@bloomberg.net
