• ZF Wind Power increases its capacity in Coimbatore (India) from 9 to 12 GW to answer the growth in the international wind market.
• Thrive, ZF Wind Power’s all-inclusive service concept, partners with ABS Wind to guarantee continuous availability in the United States.
• Through local production & service centers and sustainable logistics, ZF can guarantee worldwide quality to empower a sustainable future together with its partners.
Coimbatore, India, and Big Spring, USA. ZF Wind Power is responding to current and future growth in the wind market by a capacity expansion in India and a service partnership in the United States.
The world’s capacity to generate renewable electricity is expanding faster than ever, giving it a real chance of achieving the goal of tripling global capacity by 2030, set at the COP28 climate change conference. The IEA report expects a major increase in the global renewable power capacity over the 2023-28 period. Solar PV and wind account for 95 percent of the expansion, with renewables becoming the largest source of global electricity generation by early 2025. Solar PV and onshore wind deployment through 2028 are expected to more than double in the United States, the European Union, India, and Brazil compared with the last five years. While the wind energy supply chain faces massive challenges, ZF commits to taking important steps in empowering a sustainable future together with its partners.
12 GW capacity increase to capture the growth in the wind market
One of these steps is the expansion of the gearbox manufacturing capacity of ZF Wind Power’s state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Coimbatore from 9 GW to 12 GW. This expansion captures the growth in the international wind market. ZF invests in both production and testing capacity. The installation of a 13 MW test rig will strengthen ZF’s position as a partner in development and validation. “The test rig will be in use at the beginning of 2025, and we’ll be able to test all system functions up to 13 MW under both static and dynamic loads. This makes it possible for our team to perform both serial and R&D testing,“ explains Deepak Pohekar, Plant Head of ZF Wind Power Coimbatore. The expansion project will be finished around mid-2025 and will support the plant’s current balanced and vertically integrated flow. With a capacity expansion up to a total of 12 GW, the plant can now produce components and gearboxes supporting the transition of over 10 million households to green energy annually. This extension also prepares the Indian location for future complete powertrain assembly.
Extra service capacity to meet the demand of regional partners
Thrive, ZF Wind Power’s all-inclusive service concept, strives for worldwide continuous availability. This worldwide service is possible thanks to strong and experienced local service centers and teams. ZF has workshops spread all around the world to guarantee short refurbishment times of up to 90 days. All of them are equipped with modern precision machines, high-class quality equipment, and highly skilled gearbox experts. ZF Wind Power and ABS Wind, a global company specializing in multi-brand maintenance and repair solutions for wind turbines, formed a strategic partnership to maximize the service provision on the North American continent. This cooperation designates ABS Wind as the authorized and exclusive partner for the workshop repair of gearboxes and components for ZF Wind Power in the US. “This partnership represents a new milestone for our company, assisting us in our continued growth and demonstrating confidence in our suite of solutions for the sector, and for industry leaders such as Vestas and ZF Wind Power,” explains Alejandro Pardiñas, CEO of ABS Wind. Thrive’s workshop services for the US market will be located at the ABS facility in Big Spring, Texas – a strategic location to guarantee optimal workshop services corresponding to the Thrive standards. “The combination of our global experience, ABS’ regional resources, and our commitment to sustainability guarantees high-quality Thrive services to enable continuous availability for our partners,” concludes Sivakumar Jayapal, CSO of ZF Wind Power.
Empowering a sustainable future together: local production for global quality
Local service centers and smart logistics convert the complex logistical service system into simple and worry-free transportation of gearboxes for Thrive partners all over the world. The ‘local for global’ principle illustrated in Thrive and in the Indian production hub is integrated into ZF’s worldwide production and service strategy. With strategically located production and service plants in Germany, Belgium, India, China, North and South America, ZF can cover the world with wind power. Thanks to smart industrialization*, ZF optimizes the local tact-driven production capacity and guarantees global quality and on-time delivery. “We strive for local production that’s as close as possible to our partner’s destination. Advanced and sustainable logistics maximize our global manufacturing footprint while minimizing the ecological footprint,” says Felix Henseler, CEO of ZF Wind Power. “This way we empower a sustainable future together with our partners.”
*With the use of advanced software tools, ZF ensures swift and effective integration of all production lines to guarantee maximum availability and flexibility in response to market demand for high-performance products.
Captions:
• ZFWindPower_Coimbatore.png – ZF Wind Power Coimbatore increases its capacity from 9 to 12 GW to answer the growth in the international wind market.
• ZFWindPower_13WMTestRig.jpg – In 2025, ZF Wind Power Coimbatore will be able to test all gearbox system functions up to 13 MW under both static and dynamic loads on the new test rig.
• ZFWindPower_Thrive_ServiceMap.png – With the ABS wind partnerships on the American continent and service centers strategically located around the world, Thrive guarantees excellent workshop services globally. It transforms the service system into a simple and worry-free service concept for Thrive partners worldwide.
• ZFWindPower_ABS_Teams.jpg – ZF Wind Power and ABS Wind join forces in a strategic partnership.
ZF Wind Power
ZF Wind Power is a global leader in technology-driven manufacturing and a service partner in the global wind turbine gearbox industry. The company is leading the high-performance onshore segments with products up to 8,000 kNm and is the first to exceed 200 Nm/kg torque density in compact modular platform designs. ZF delivered the world’s first offshore 9.5 MW wind turbine gearbox and, in close cooperation with its partner, delivered the first prototypes of the next-generation offshore powertrains. The company has the world’s largest installed capacity of +8 MW offshore wind turbine gearboxes. Since it entered the wind industry in 1979, ZF Wind Power has delivered more than 85,000 gearboxes, powering up to 195 GW (mainly high-performance) wind turbines, covering almost 25 percent of the total installed capacity of geared-driven wind turbines worldwide. Together with its partners, the company continuously invests in the wind market to empower a sustainable future together.
About ZF
ZF is a global technology company supplying systems for passenger cars, commercial vehicles, and industrial technology, enabling the next generation of mobility. ZF allows vehicles to see, think, and act. Within the four technology domains of Vehicle Motion Control, Integrated Safety, Automated Driving, and Electric Mobility, ZF offers comprehensive product and software solutions for established vehicle manufacturers and newly emerging transport and mobility service providers. ZF electrifies a wide range of vehicle types. With its products, the company contributes to reducing emissions, protecting the climate, and enhancing safe mobility. With some 165,000 employees worldwide, ZF reported sales of €43.8 billion in the 2022 fiscal year. The company operates 168 production locations in 32 countries.
For further press information and photos, please visit www.zf.com.
Press contact:
Kris Adriaenssen, Head of Marketing, ZF Wind Power
Phone: +32 11 34 98 96, email: kris.adriaenssen@zf.com
Gernot Hein, Head of Communications, Industrial Technology Division
Phone: +49 (0) 851 494 2480, email: gernot.hein@zf.com
