Siemens Gamesa, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, is boosting its focus on energy storage technology, the latest sign of the growing importance of batteries to extending the reach of wind and solar power.
Chief executive Markus Tacke said his aim was to make renewable energy sources available on demand, even when the wind was not blowing and the sun was not shining.
“The missing part is storage,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times. “To unlock the potential growth limitations, that is the piece of technology that needs to be developed.”
Mr Tacke pointed out that as the cost of wind turbines has come down, it made sense to pair them with solar or storage to create a more consistent source of power. He said Siemens Gamesa was increasing its investment in storage technology.
As part of its push, Siemens Gamesa has invested more in batteries and other types of energy storage, including a hot rock plant (where surplus power is retained by heating rocks) that helps provide power for an aluminium smelter in Hamburg.
The company is also testing a vanadium redox-flow battery system — a niche technology that some people believe could eventually rival lithium-ion batteries for energy storage — at a research facility in Spain.
Siemens Gamesa had a difficult first year after it was created from the merger of Siemens’ wind turbine business with Gamesa, the Spanish turbine maker, and its share price has fallen by almost a third since the deal was completed last April.
Mr Tacke, who had been head of Siemens’ wind business, became chief executive of the new company when the merger was completed.
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