WinWinD Pushing Hard In Wind Turbines
Somewhat surprisingly, one of the most efficient wind turbines on the market is coming from Finland. A good reason for us to shed some light on WinWinD and their excellent products. Jari Varjotie, the COO of WinWinD, took some time out of his schedule to answer my questions.
WinWinD was established in 2000 in the city of Oulu in Finland. The founder, Jouko Tiuraniemi, has a long career in the field of energy. In 1995 Tiuraniemi started to think about a new, highly efficient wind turbine, as he realized that the key to success was not to try to compete on their terms with the Germans and Danes who were dominating the market, but to create a turbine that would be technically superior. WinWinD chose the Multibrid technology as basis for the WWD turbine, and going forward with the Multibrid low speed technology was the first strategically important decision for the company. In 2001 the WWD-1 wind turbine pilot project was completed. The WWD-3, a 3 Megawatt turbine, followed in 2004.
WinWinD employs over 230 persons in Finland. Additionally, the company employs almost 300 persons in India, where it has a turbine and blade factory. WinWinD is ISO 9000 certified and aims at getting ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certified during this year, showing that also small companies can successfully implement an environmental and quality management system. To top it off, the new factory in Hamina will be powered in part by electricity coming from WinWinD's own wind turbines, which are situated in the Hamina 
wind park. Similar plans are in the pipeline for the factory in India.
The majority owner of WinWinD is Sterling Infotech Group from India, and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) is a significant minority owner. Masdar invested in WinWinD last year a whopping 120 million €, which is a lot in Finnish standards. The Finnish government owned Industry Investment is another minority owner, and additionally some key employees own some shares of the company. Jari told me that WinWinD's biggest customers are PVO Innopower Oy in Finland, Eesti Energia in Estonia, Skellefteå Kraft in Sweden and the French wind park developer Innovent. Asked about how the economic crisis has effected the company, Jari told me that he believes every company has met effects of the economic crisis in their business in one way or another. WinWinD also has seen these effects, mainly in longer lead times to make deals with the customers who in turn need to increase their efforts to get the financing for their wind parks.
I have followed WinWinD's development over the last few years, and am very glad to see that the high quality and innovative product is developing well and that the company is growing at a steady pace - turnover last year was close to 70 million €. With a technical lifetime of 20 years of their turbines and a 24 hour worldwide maintenance service I believe WinWinD has a winning concept which will prove itself in the marketplace. Wind energy is growing in importance in today's energy mix, and also in Finland wind energy is becoming more popular. The fact that the wind turbines are produced in part in Finland and that the company is cooperating on different levels with Finnish companies is a big plus in my book. I think that the new factory in Hamina, which will be in the same location as the Google data centre, will help WinWind to become more known and grow their business.
The Guest Blogger, Hendrik Morkel, is half Dutch/ half German and has lived in the Netherlands, Germany, Honduras and Spain.
Living in Finland since 2002, he has a Bachelor’s degree in International Business Management and a Master’s degree in Corporate Environmental Management.
He liked Finland so much that he decided to stay, and established Korpi Consulting, an environmental management consultancy focused on helping SMEs to optimize their environmental performance.
Great story Hendrik, fully enjoyed! Hopefully we see more similar (or commercial) success cases from Nordic region to come: Abu Dhabi has given a commitment to invest $ 15 bln in renewable energy.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
the history of WWD has been written based on misleading information. Jouko Tiuraniemi had no history in windpower but was working as a civil engineer in his company Voimarakenne. He went to Germany 1998 in search for a cooperation partner for a wind turbine project. I came over to Finland in April 1999 to head the project. Among a 19 year windpower experience I also brought the Multibrid concept to Finland which I had developed in Germany at AERODYN. The work started in Helsinki at PVO-Engineering. A direct drive project with Siemens failed after about half a year. In this moment I proposed the MULTIBRID concept as alternative. Being a "nearly direct drive" the formerly granted TEKES subsidy stayed valid.
In 2001 WWD had to be founded as a spin-off, as PVO-E had naturally no interest in becoming a wind turbine producer.
I designed the WWD1 with AERODYN GmbH as subcontractor for detail work, and the proto machine was put up in summer 2001. Veli-Matti Jääskeläinen, head of PVOE in Helsinki, changed to WWD and became managing director. The activities were transferred to Oulu. Jouko became vice president and I became technical director. With three men we started this business, based on German engineering. ABB and Moventas supplied their components but never participated in the system design of the wind turbine itself.
Georg Böhmeke,
Thank you for the additional background info in describing WinWinD's history. I'm glad you illuminated your important role in the development and establishment of WinWinD and the Multibrid turbines.
Päivi, thank you for the positive feedback! With so much money which Abu Dhabi is investing in renewables, I hope a fraction of it is invested in Finland and helps the local companies to bring another success to the market!
There are many competitors in large wind turbines market, like Vestas, Nordex and others. WinWindD has many works to do.
I think in india, the low speed permanent magnet type direct drive machine will be more sensitive as wind characteristics are varying at different locations.
The gusts caused in hilly areas wil affect machine life .
But as the windy sites are getting exausted in india , the low wind sites are best suited for winwind type turbines that will give more generation of power compared to gearbox traditional turbines of other competitors.
My suggestion is that blades used in indian winwind turbines needs to be much lighter as gearless turbines have an edge over the gearbox turbines.
also, winwind needs to focus on arab countries in middle east for business in oman, saudi, qatar, where wind speeds over an average of 5-6 mts in a year.
Hope this will help !!
to add more to this , gearless wind turbines will going to have a great succes in india as land that is available for wind farms have mostly 80 % of wind class II . with average wind velocity of 5-7 m/sec.
Thanks once gain ,
Regards
Concept is new and good, but not yet popular. Even after five years, the design could not get type approval for serial production - started only after the initiative taken after acquisition by the Indian Partner. Market acceptance needs positive track record. Performance is yet to be field proven. Technology needs to be fine tuned, and products have to be competitive in the market.
Similar concepts have already been implemented by market leaders. It is not known whether there is any IP right held by WinWinD.
What we need for a wind energy to be a success is good Supply chain backbone. Once its done with legitimate planning, its all win wins situation.
I think to capitilise prospective customers at fast rate, make all WTG components indianised. do not rely on out-bound sourcing of goods from abroad, purchase land rigorously by institutional partnerships with nodal agencies, in all potential states, & see you r on top .
This WinWind turbine is very complicated.
It is not Traditional like vestas nor a Direct drive like Enercon or Vensys.
It will have all problems of both type.
and no,of components are more as compare to others.
It does not have orders in India since it can not compete with price war with
other WTG manufacturer.
For Low wind sites this WTG has to be proved first.
Hello Ketan,
Thanks for your comments. I think you are right to some extent. You must know that how suzlon has capitalized to the situation in 90's. In same regards, Win wind & others such as Ecotechnia, Ghodawat energy, Inox Wind, Frisia GMbh & lietner Sriram can also have fair chance to perform in low wind regime where traditional turbines cannot do very much. I am strong believer that Permanent magnet type will lead the course of time. Oppurtnity & market is wide open to compete, only needed is sufficiently trained people to follow the way.