The component and tool centre, in the city of Fujing, Fujian province, will supply the 1.5GW Vestas turbines operating in the provinces of Fujian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdon and Hainan.
The 5,000 square-metre Fujian centre will reduce inventory costs and improve wind farm operating efficiency, said Richard Zheng, country manager of Vestas China. "Under the present sluggish wind power market conditions, the Vestas project will not only reduce the time and operation costs of wind farms, but also prove our commitment of long-term development in China."
Delivery from Vestas' largest component centre in Beijing can take a week to reach wind farms in the southern and eastern provinces.
China's early wind turbines have gradually entered the maintenance stage, heightening the importance of components delivery. Wind farm operators have to store components in order to reduce downtime following breakdown. Lengthy delays reduce efficiency and increase operating costs. The oldest Vestas turbines in China, in eastern Shandong province, north of Jiangsu, were installed in 1986.
Chinese developers have increasingly looked to southern regions to build wind farms following serious curtailment in the wind-rich northern regions.
Vestas has sold and installed over 1.5GW of wind turbines in the south-eastern provinces alone. In 2012, Vestas was the tenth largest supplier in China, installing 414.4MW turbines. By the end of 2012, it had installed over 3.8GW wind turbines in 13 provinces in China.
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