FTI Consulting, Inc., the global business advisory firm, released latest renewable energy publication, Global Wind Supply Chain Update 2015.
This report is part of a series of data-driven publications evaluating competitive markets, policy, finance, technology and business models across the energy spectrum.
The report, Global Wind Supply Chain Update 2015, examines the supply chain situation for 12 key components (350+ suppliers) and three key materials (150+ suppliers), which account for more than 95 percent of a wind turbine’s total cost. In addition to the specific components and materials, it also includes an assessment of offshore wind farm balance of plants, a summary of supply chain strategies for the world’s top 15 turbine OEMs and FTI-CL Energy experts’ demand forecast for global wind market growth through 2018. The report is authored by members of the FTI-CL Energy practice, a cross-practice team of energy experts from both FTI Consulting and its subsidiary, Compass Lexecon.
The key findings of the report include:
“The wind industry has been in the process of transformation since 2011 and the global wind supply chain is not matured yet,” explained Feng Zhao, Director at FTI Consulting and Head of Wind Energy within the FTI-CL Energy practice. “The exit/non-participation of so many suppliers delivers a dangerous signal to governments. To bring wind towards a position where it can compete head-to-head with conventional energy sources, it is imperative to find a balance between maintaining attractive and certain policy and reducing the burden on governments and consumers caused by paying renewable energy subsidy.”
“The challenging economic and political climate has forced large wind turbine vendors to shed low value assets and to opt for outsourcing” says Aris Karcanias, Managing Director at FTI Consulting and Co-Lead of the Company’s FTI-CL Clean Tech practice in Europe. “Large turbine OEMs have adopted lean organization models from other industries to deal with market instability and increase flexibility and capacity utilization.”
Press release; Image: e.on