The Availon acquisition will strengthen Vestas’ capabilities to service a broad range of wind turbine technologies.

Vestas has agreed to acquire Availon, a leading European independent service provider headquartered in Rheine, Germany. With about 400 employees and a total capacity of more than 2.6 GW under service, Availon’s core market is in Germany, with notable service activities in Austria, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Poland, and the United States.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval from relevant competition authorities. Closing is expected to take place in the first quarter of 2016.

“Acquiring Availon is a natural next step in accelerating Vestas’ profitable growth strategy in the service business,” said Christian Venderby, Group Senior VP of Vestas Global Service. “Size and scale matter and the acquisition strengthens our capabilities to service most major turbine technologies and to capture market shares. Availon is a solid strategic fit and a great complement to our recent acquisition of UpWind Solutions in the United States.”

“We are very pleased to welcome Availon and our new colleagues to the Vestas organization,” added Nils de Baar, President of Vestas Central Europe. “Germany is our largest market in Europe, and Availon’s strong performance here and elsewhere will expand our joint service portfolio and bolster our position as a leading global service partner. I look forward to working with Availon’s highly professional management team and to ensuring that we execute and expand our combined order backlog.”

The acquisition price for Availon is EUR 88.0 million on a debt and cash free basis. The consideration will be paid in cash from readily available sources. For 2015 Availon is on a stand-alone basis expected to report consolidated revenues of EUR 59.8 million, normalised EBITDA of EUR 5.2 million and total assets of approx EUR 33.3 million. Availon will be included in Vestas’ financials from the time of closing.

“Vestas and Availon share the same values in terms of safety, quality, customer satisfaction, and reaching the highest availability possible. Combining forces will contribute to our jointly becoming the preferred fleet-wide service partner for a wider range of customers and turbine technologies. We look forward to becoming part of such a passionate and forward-looking organization,” said Availon’s CEO Ulrich Schomakers.

Vestas
www.vestas.com

The post Vestas to acquire Germany-based independent service provider Availon appeared first on Windpower Engineering & Development.

ZF has officially taken over the industrial gears and turbine gearbox business from Bosch Rexroth, extending its gearbox reach to turbines up to 8 MW.

As of December of this year, technology company ZF will officially take over the industrial gears and wind-turbine gearbox business from Bosch Rexroth AG. Various product lines will be brought together in the new ZF Industrial Gears business unit based in Witten, Germany. A total of 1,200 employees at Bosch’s U.S. and Beijing locations will officially join ZF.

“With the newly created Industrial Gears business unit we intend to get things moving on a large scale,” says the ZF Chief Executive Officer Dr. Stefan Sommer. “We are extending our portfolio with large transmissions for industrial applications and mobile machinery…the product range will also be extended in the Wind Power Technology business unit with gearboxes for turbines generating up to eight megawatts.”

Two newly founded companies will be added to the Industrial Gears business unit: ZF Industrieantriebe Witten GmbH and the ZF Powertrain Systems (Beijing) Co., Ltd. The German location is headquarters for the business unit, which is home to Administration and Production, as well as the Department for large gearbox technologies (industrial gears and wind turbine gearboxes). It’s also the production location of ZF’s existing Wind Power Technology business unit, which is headquartered in Lommel, Belgium.

ZF has appointed Christoph Kainzbauer, an experienced manager in the field of large gearbox technology, to head up the Industrial Gears business unit. He was previously responsible for global Sales of Bosch Rexroth’s large gearbox segment.

Gearboxes for ZF’s wind-power segment will also be produced at the Beijing location, extending the company’s presence in the wind gearbox market in China.

“We see ideal future opportunities for the Industrial Technology division, especially in wind-power technology,” shared Wilhelm Rehm, responsible for Corporate Materials Management and Industrial Technology on the ZF Board of Management.

ZF
www.zf.com

The post ZF acquires large gear and gearbox segment from Bosch Rexroth appeared first on Windpower Engineering & Development.

Prior to finalizing the acquisition of First Wind, SunEdison selected Vaisala to deliver the necessary analysis to evaluate key development assets.

Vaisala, a global leader in environmental and industrial measurement, played a critical role in supporting SunEdison and its power-plant holding company, TerraForm Power, in the $2.4 billion purchase of First Wind Holdings in late 2014.

Prior to the acquisition of a large number of assets in any industry, it is imperative that the value of those assets is accurately assessed and quantified. When the assets involved are wind projects fueled and impacted by the weather, bringing in experts to translate weather information into energy production estimates and project valuation decisions is vital.

With the purchase of First Wind, TerraForm gained 521 MW of active wind and solar power plants and more than 8 GW of total pipeline, backlog, and leads. Prior to finalizing the deal, asset valuation was required to determine the worth of First Wind’s existing portfolio. Vaisala was selected by SunEdison to deliver the necessary analysis to evaluate key development assets.

Making sure the worth of this portfolio was calculated accurately was highly dependent on robust climate and energy analysis. However, when it came to closing the deal, all parties involved were also working against tight deadlines and needed to act as quickly as possible to complete the financial due diligence for such a major investment. To fulfill these two requirements, SunEdison turned to Vaisala.

“When negotiating such an important and sizeable acquisition, time pressure can be considerable and the ability to act fast can make or break a deal,” said Barnaby Olson, Director of Special Projects at SunEdison. “It’s nonetheless critical for the success of the investment that early due diligence work is both thorough and comprehensive.”

“Having worked with Vaisala 3TIER Services in the past, we were well aware of the team’s competency, dedication, and ability to turn work around extremely quickly – and these attributes were invaluable to us as we successfully finalized the purchase of First Wind.”

Vaisala completed analysis on 377.5 MW, or nearly a quarter of First Wind’s development portfolio, on an accelerated timeline to accommodate the transaction. This work entailed quality control analysis of available meteorological tower data at the project sites to deliver long-term net production numbers, calibrated to local conditions, with all loss values incorporated (such as, wake deficits, extreme weather, and electrical and grid downtime).

The First Wind acquisition has been characterized as a transformative move to diversify the range of renewable energy projects SunEdison can develop and to aggressively increase its portfolio.

Vaisala has carried out asset valuation analysis on both operational and in development wind projects totaling over 30 GW of wind capacity worldwide.

Vaisala
www.vaisala.com/energy

The post Vaisala supports SunEdison and TerraForm in $2.4B First Wind acquisition appeared first on Windpower Engineering & Development.