Windar Renovables Starts Work on New Monopile Factory in Spain

September 24, 2024, by Adnan Durakovic

Windar Renovables has started preparatory work to construct a new monopile factory in Asturias, Spain.

An artist's impression of the new monopile factory. Source: Windar Renovables

Windar Renovables acquired the construction site on the right bank of the Avilés estuary last March. This land, with a surface area of more than 400,000 square metres, includes several manufacturing warehouses with direct access to the Port of Avilés, from where the company specializing in new green energies already exports various components for the wind energy sector.

Windar will adapt a large part of the existing warehouses, as well as build new facilities, already adapted to the manufacture of monopiles for new generation wind turbines, which have an installed power of more than 15 MW.

To achieve this, the company will install several manufacturing lines with the capacity to manufacture monopiles of up to 12.5 metres in diameter, 3,500 tonnes and 130 metres in length. The factory will have an annual capacity of between 100 and 120 monopiles, whose potential destination will be mainly wind farms to be installed in the North and Baltic Seas, as well as the East Coast of the United States.

This manufacturing plant will add 600 new jobs to the employment already generated by Windar in the Asturias region where it has up to five production centers, which supply the market with wind turbine towers, both onshore and offshore, as well as transition pieces (TPs) to support offshore wind turbines.

”We are already taking the first steps towards the construction of a new production center that will undoubtedly make northwest Spain the largest offshore wind hub in Europe,” said Windar Renovables CEO Orlando Alonso.

”This investment makes clear our commitment to the economic development of the area, creating 600 new jobs and placing the region at the forefront of decarbonization and energy transition.”

Windar has already started to demobilize existing equipment and is expediting demolition and construction permits, with the aim of having the new factory ready to start manufacturing monopiles in 2027.

With this investment, Windar said it will strengthen its position in this segment, as it is currently supplying monopiles, together with its strategic partner Navantia, from the Navantia shipyard in Fene.

Windar, through its strategic alliance with Navantia Seanergies, has supplied 14 monopiles for the Moray West project (Ocean Winds) and is currently executing two contracts for Iberdrola for the East Anglia Three in the UK and Windanker in Germany, and has another contract in the pipeline with the Danish developer Ørsted for a wind farm in Poland.