General Electric completed the acquisition of the Danish manufacturer LM Wind Power, which designs and produces rotor blades for wind-power projects. In progress since last October, the $1.65-billion deal had to secure regulatory clearances in the European Union, the United States, China, and Brazil.
LM Wind Power develops and manufactures blades and services, and provides logistics for wind-power installations; it holds 190 patents and has 13 manufacturing plants in eight countries, and claims to have produced more than 185,000 blades (approximately 77 gigawatts of installed wind power capacity) since 1978. It will be an individual operating unit within the GE Renewable Energy business, supplying blades for GE’s onshore and offshore wind business units.
It also will supply blades to other manufacturers.
LM Wind Power’s manufacturing plants are in Denmark, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Poland, Spain, and the U.S. (Grand Forks, N.D., and Little Rock, Ark.)
“The completion of the LM Wind Power acquisition provides us with the operational efficiencies necessary to support the growth of our wind turbine business, which is the fastest growing segment of power generation,” according to Jérôme Pécresse, president and CEO of GE Renewable Energy.
GE has explained it intends to grow its capabilities and resources for renewable energy projects, including wind power and hybrid power projects (wind-solar, hydro-wind.)
“With LM’s technology and blade engineering, we are now able to improve the overall performance of our wind turbines, lowering the cost of electricity and increasing the value for our customers,” according to Pécresse.
