One of Portugal’s leading renewable energy companies is expanding fast and aims to launch innovative wave power generators from the port of Aveiro as it expands in this emerging 'alternative energy' market.
Investment by ASM Energia in its Sever do Vouga plant will allow the company to increase production of wind turbine towers by 40% but already the manufacturer needs more space to cope with international demand for efficient wind based energy systems.
ASM Energia already is the largest producer of wind towers in Portugal and its management wants to quadruple turnover to €50 million by 2020 - the growth projection mirroring the increase in renewable energy technologies that are outstripping oil-based technologies in investment return.
Half of this production increase will come from the onshore and offshore wind towers and €30 million has been set aside for investment in new production facilities.
Due to the lack of a coherent alternative energy policy in Portugal, since 2010 ASM Energia has been exporting almost all its production to European markets, in particular to France and the United Kingdom, and to Latin America.
"With our country remaining without great prospects for installing new wind farms in the coming years, we are exporting 95% of production. The new assembly line aims to increase production capacity to meet the growing needs of the European market, to prepare for the future. The emerging countries of North Africa and Latin America and the US itself may turn out to be interesting markets," says Adelino Costa Matos.
The company is turning to the natural power of the ocean - the first floating wind power structure in Portugal was produced by ASM Energia in 2011 for the EDP group’s Windfloat project. Since 2015, ASM Energia has been one of EDP's partners in another offshore wind project - Demogravi3.
Since these towers and their foundations are huge, five times bigger than those currently produced in Sever do Vouga, the company needs a "large manufacturing and assembly space" and therefore needs to build its new factory in a port.
The preferred location is in the port of Aveiro, but negotiations over a new site with the Ministry of the Sea have dragged on, maybe because the minister is more involved in promoting an offshore oil industry rather than paying attention to a market veering rapidly to alternative energies.
The new Aveiro project will involve an investment of around €25 million and already has been approved under Portugal 2020. The new plant is expected to create 120 jobs and be operational by the beginning of 2019.
The ASM Group carried out a thorough study of several major ports in Europe, including in Ireland and Poland, and decided on Aveiro due to the "excellent conditions" it presents and hopes that its investment will bring others to create a cluster of similar businesses.
Linked to the construction of its massive wind towers, ASM is studying a move to produce large floating structures on the high seas to produce clean energy, an area with vast potential, "We are creating conditions with partners to explore this new business development, but it is premature to estimate its potential," said Adelino Costa Matos, ramaining tight-lipped over his company's move into an area that now is well researched and can produce significant returns.
