Windletter #133 - No MingYang factory in the UK, and other moves
Also: floating wind pipeline update, OEM market share in Germany in 2025, Goldwind's 166-metre hybrid tower in Brazil, and more.
Hello everyone and welcome to a new issue of Windletter. I'm Sergio Fernández Munguía (@Sergio_FerMun) and here we discuss the latest news in the wind power sector from a different perspective. If you're not subscribed to the newsletter, you can do so here.
Windletter is sponsored by:
🔹 Tetrace. Reference provider of O&M services, engineering, supervision, and spare parts in the renewable energy market. More information here.
🔹 RenerCycle. Development and commercialization of specialized circular economy solutions and services for renewable energies. More information here.
🔹 Nabrawind. Design, development, manufacturing, and commercialization of advanced wind technologies. More information here.
🔹 Ingeteam Wind Energy. A global technology and services partner for the wind energy industry, working with OEMs, utilities and asset owners. Find out more here.
Windletter está disponible en español aquí
The most-read items from the last edition were: the report on the blackout in Spain, the video of the curious Chinese aerostatic wind turbine, and the announcements of new MingYang turbines.
On another note, last week we published a sponsored article by Ingeteam Wind Energy on Full Converter solutions for wind turbines above 10 MW. We also published the second instalment of our new section “Wind Turbine of the Month” with a deep dive into the Vestas V172-7.2 MW™.
And now, on to the week’s news.
Windletter is a publication supported by its community of readers. If you enjoy the content and want to be part of this community, you can subscribe for free or join as a paid subscriber to support the publication.
🚫 No MingYang factory in the UK, and other moves
Three manufacturing-related stories broke in the same week at the end of March that, taken together, paint a fairly clear picture of where Europe’s offshore wind industry is heading: the British government is not backing the use of MingYang turbines in UK offshore projects, Vestas announces plans to build a nacelle factory in the same country, and Siemens Gamesa confirms the definitive closure of its production line in Brande, Denmark.
The veto on MingYang
To understand this news you need to go back a couple of years. In edition #76 we covered the apparent contradiction: while the EU was opening an investigation into Chinese manufacturers for potentially illegal subsidies, the Scottish Government welcomed Ardersier as MingYang’s preferred location for a possible investment. The UK is of course not obliged to follow the EU’s industrial policy, but it was striking nonetheless.
Then in edition #85 we analysed MingYang’s entry with its 18.5 MW turbines as preferred supplier for the German offshore project Waterkant by Luxcara, the first European project to openly commit to equipping Chinese turbines in earnest and in public.
First it was Luxcara that stepped away, replacing MingYang with SGRE as preferred supplier. And now Keir Starmer’s government has placed another obstacle in MingYang’s European “dream” with a statement saying it “cannot support” the use of MingYang turbines in British offshore projects.
MingYang has responded publicly, pointing out that it is a company listed on the Shanghai and London stock exchanges, not state-owned, and that it has spent two years developing cybersecurity solutions specifically for the British market. It also argues that there is no direct alternative to its 18.5 MW platform in Europe, and that the ban restricts competition in an already tight turbine market.
Vestas announces a factory in Scotland, with conditions
Almost simultaneously with the MingYang veto, Vestas announced its intention to invest more than €250 million in a nacelle and hub factory for its V236-15.0 MW in Scotland. It would be operational between 2029 and 2030 and create up to 500 direct jobs. It would be its fifth European factory dedicated exclusively to offshore.
Why now? The answer lies in edition #129: the January 2026 AR7 was the largest offshore wind auction in the history of both the UK and Europe, with 8.4 GW awarded. Vestas has also just received two firm orders from RWE for the Vanguard East and Vanguard West projects, totalling 184 V236-15.0 MW turbines, 2,760 MW in total. A portfolio of that size starts to justify local manufacturing.
But it is worth reading the fine print: the final investment decision is conditional on securing enough orders from the AR7 and AR8 auctions. Vestas will not build the factory without contracts in place. The precedents invite caution: SGRE suspended the opening of a nacelle factory in Esbjerg, Denmark last year, citing market conditions and a lack of visibility and stability.
Siemens Gamesa closes production in Brande
Along the same lines, Siemens Gamesa has announced that it will definitively close its nacelle production line in Brande, Denmark, after eighteen months of temporary stoppage. Around 150 workers will be affected. The plant will remain active for R&D, services and administrative functions, but serial manufacturing is over.
Brande is one of the historic sites of Siemens’ Danish wind business, linked to Bonus Energy, acquired by Siemens in 2004. The closure carries considerable symbolic weight.
The structural explanation seems clear: Denmark does not have visibility of a pipeline of new offshore projects sufficient to justify the production capacity.
A reflection on where this is all heading
European offshore manufacturing is moving to where the projects are, and that currently means mainly the British North Sea. SGRE maintains its blade factory in Hull, in the north of England.
The three moves of this week confirm that the European offshore market currently has only two suppliers, and this seems likely to remain the case at medium term: Vestas and Siemens Gamesa. Some in the industry warn that such a duopoly is not necessarily healthy in the long run.
Could MingYang or another Chinese manufacturer break up that duopoly? My sense is that, if it happens, the most likely path does not run through offshore in the short term. But in onshore it is already happening gradually: smaller projects, clients with less exposure to public scrutiny, unlisted developers with lower institutional pressure. It is a gradual and discreet entry that generates no headlines but builds track record.
In offshore, if it comes, it will probably arrive through merchant projects or private PPAs, where the argument about public support or government spending does not apply. But that type of project, given current offshore financing and construction costs, is very limited.
📊 The pipeline of mature floating wind farms
An analysis by Aegir Insights reviews the state of the global floating wind pipeline, focusing on the most advanced projects.
After a 2024 that set a record with 1.9 GW of offtake contracts awarded, 2025 has been a very quiet year in terms of major project development milestones. The start of 2026 adds a further 193 MW, thanks to two floating projects awarded in the UK’s AR7 round.
But the overall diagnosis remains unchanged: limited pipeline and unclear timelines. The most active markets are the UK and France, with South Korea hosting the largest-scale project but as an uncertain candidate given regulatory changes.
According to Aegir Insights, delays in the French and Korean auctions, combined with the absence of a defined pipeline in the UK beyond AR7, make it difficult to foresee how the sector will evolve over the coming years.
The two main variables to watch are the commercialisation of floating platform technologies (where there is still intense competition) and the availability or otherwise of Chinese turbines for these projects.
Floating wind has followed the same pattern for years: ambitious announcements, auctions that slip, and a real pipeline considerably more modest than the theoretical one. In edition #99 we devoted the main feature to the arrival of large-scale floating wind farms.
🇩🇪 Market share by OEM in Germany in 2025
Thomas Simons has published an analysis using data from the Marktstammdatenregister of the Bundesnetzagentur on which manufacturers and models were installed in Germany during 2025.
In onshore, three manufacturers shared almost all of it in roughly equal measure: Nordex led with 31% (1.6 GW), followed by Vestas with 30% (1.6 GW) and Enercon with 29% (1.5 GW). Siemens Gamesa, GE Vernova and eno energy covered the rest. The most-installed models were the Vestas V162 (153 units), the Enercon E-160 (132) and the Nordex N149 (119). Enercon installed turbines slightly below the market average power; Siemens Gamesa, above it.
In offshore, far less variety: only two models from two manufacturers. The Siemens Gamesa SG 11.0-200 DD dominated with 28 units (323.4 MW), and the Vestas V236-15 MW contributed another 9 (135 MW). A total of 458 MW offshore for the year.
The remarkably even split between Nordex, Vestas and Enercon in onshore is telling. The fact that no manufacturer exceeds 31% in Europe’s largest onshore market is a sign of genuine competition, something not seen in every market.
In edition #128 we analysed in depth the 5 GW installed in Germany in 2025 and what we can learn from the German model.
We will very probably prepare something similar for Spain over the coming weeks. If you don’t want to miss it, subscribe.
⚓ The TetraSpar floating prototype will be decommissioned after nearly five years of operation
Stiesdal Offshore, RWE and TEPCO Renewable Power have announced the decommissioning of the TetraSpar Demonstrator, scheduled for summer 2026.
The prototype, installed in July 2021 at the METCentre in Karmøy (Norway) at 200 metres of water depth, is equipped with a Siemens Gamesa 3.6 MW DD turbine and has generated almost 70 million kWh over nearly five years of operation, with a cumulative capacity factor of 50% and availability of 98%.
The operational data are spectacular. We already covered them in edition #82, when the prototype had already put up extraordinary numbers for a technology still in the demonstration phase, all the more remarkable given the less encouraging experiences seen with other similar prototypes.
The decommissioning is not the end of the project but, according to the developers themselves, its final learning phase: by removing the structure they will be able to inspect in detail the real behaviour of the steel after nearly five years submerged, data that cannot be obtained any other way.
🏆 Vestas reaches 200 GW of installed turbines in its history
In mid-December 2025, Vestas reached 200 GW of installed wind turbines worldwide, becoming the first OEM to achieve this milestone. The record was set by a V172-7.2 MW installed at the Meppen repowering project in Germany.
To get here, Vestas has installed more than 90,000 turbines across 88 countries on all six continents. According to the Danish company, based on Vestas’s average capacity factor, all these turbines would generate around 607 TWh per year, enough to power 174 million European households or charge 156 million electric cars for a year.
The 200 GW figure is cumulative installed capacity over the company’s history, not capacity currently in operation. Separately, Vestas published a couple of years ago that it had reached 150 GW under service. So, roughly speaking and without factoring in multibrand contracts, it would not be far off to say that Vestas maintains more than 75% of its fleet.
The company was also the first to reach 100 GW, a milestone it achieved at the end of 2018. If the first 100 GW took four decades, the second 100 GW have been installed in less than seven years.
🌊 Goldwind installs the world’s largest offshore wind turbine
Last January, China Three Gorges and Goldwind installed offshore in Fujian the world’s first 20 MW offshore wind turbine. The turbine, designated GWH300-20, is located more than 30 km from the coast at a site with 40 metres of water depth, and forms part of China’s National R&D Programme.
The technical specifications speak for themselves: 300-metre rotor diameter, 147-metre blades, 145-metre hub height, which means the blades are longer than the tower itself. They clear the water thanks to the height of the jacket. 😄
One of the most striking data points is the weight: according to available information, less than 40 tonnes per MW, more than 20% below the sector average. In a business where the size of foundations and installation vessels depends directly on turbine weight, reducing weight per MW matters as much as increasing power.
In 2024, they installed the GWH252-16MW on a semi-submersible floater, making it the world’s largest floating wind turbine, as we covered in edition #120. And before that, in edition #46, we covered how Goldwind had installed what was then the world’s largest wind turbine: 16 MW and a 252-metre rotor, also on a fixed-bottom foundation.
What catches my attention is that China Three Gorges, one of the world’s largest renewables developers, appears in every source as co-developer of the turbine alongside Goldwind. In the West we are used to a clear separation between OEM and developer. Here, that line blurs considerably.
I am not sure how far CTG was involved in the actual design of the machine, or whether its role was more that of financier and customer, but the way the collaboration is presented is curious to say the least.
⚙️ The Nabralift 188-metre tower prototype with an Envision turbine is now operational
Our sponsor Nabrawind has announced that the first unit of its Nabralift tower with an Envision EN182-7.8MW is already operational at full power at Envision’s test centre in China.
17 units of this same model will be installed at the Nullagine project in Pilbara, Western Australia, owned by Fortescue.
This is not the first time we have covered this project. In edition #120 we reported that Nabrawind had been acquired 100% by Fortescue, the Australian mining company that had already been a shareholder since 2023. Alongside the acquisition, Fortescue also announced the construction of this 132 MW wind farm as the first project with Nabrawind technology. And if all goes to plan, Fortescue’s decarbonisation plans could bring more orders.
More recently, in edition #130, we covered the start of construction at Nullagine and the prototype with Envision in China. The commissioning of the first unit closes the loop on a story we have been following for some time.
Thank you very much for reading Windletter and many thanks to Tetrace, RenerCycle, Nabrawind and Ingeteam, our main sponsors, for making it possible.
See you next time!
Disclaimer: The opinions presented in Windletter are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer