General Electric (GE) has entered into talks with Areva, Gamesa, Siemens and the French state to discuss the potential acquisition of Adwen, a 50 – 50 offshore wind joint venture between Areva and Gamesa, Jeff Immelt, GE’s CEO, told French daily Le Figaro.
GE took over Alstom’s power and grid businesses last year , which included 1.5GW of offshore wind contracts with EDF in France, scheduled for delivery by 2019. If the Adwen takeover goes through, GE will add another 1.5GW worth of orders in France to the tally.
Adwen is reportedly the only thing standing between the Siemens-Gamesa merger , announced earlier this year. Initial reports on the potential EUR 13 billion merger suggested that Siemens was interested in acquiring Areva’s 50% stake in Adwen.
However, this deal reportedly fell through after Siemens said that it will not build two manufacturing plants for Adwen wind turbines in France, as was previously agreed between the joint venture partners and the French government.
Gamesa and Areva received commitments from the French government that Adwen’s 8MW wind turbines will be used for projects offshore France totaling 1.5GW on condition that the turbines are built in France. Siemens justified its decision not to commit to building the two plants by arguing that these commitments are not a definite guarantee that the contracts for these projects will actually be signed.
Gamesa and Areva formed the joint venture in March 2015, with both companies investing around EUR 200 million, offering two 5MW turbine types (AD 5-135 and AD 5-132 ) and a 8MW (AD 8-180) turbine to the market.
The company was the second largest wind turbine manufacturer in Europe in 2015, with a market share of 18.2% of grid connected capacity, according to the statistics published by EWEA (now WindEurope).
Offshore WIND Staff