Jul 30 2009
American Superconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: AMSC), a global energy technologies company, today announced that it has amended its multi-year contract with Beijing-based Sinovel Wind Corporation Limited, China’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, to enable Sinovel to meet increased demand in China for its 1.5 megawatt (MW) wind turbines.
The original contract called for AMSC to ship core electrical components for Sinovel’s 1.5 MW wind turbines beginning in January 2009 through the end of December 2011. Under the terms of the amended contract, AMSC will increase its core electrical component shipments to Sinovel in calendar year 2009 and 2010 and will complete all shipments by the end of April 2011. The contract was also amended to include a greater number of AMSC’s wind-specific PowerModule PM3000W power converters. Optimized for wind turbine applications, the PM3000W enables Sinovel to include in its wind turbines grid-friendly features such as Low Voltage Ride Through. The initial contract included a larger fraction of PowerModule PM1000 power converters. As a result of this power converter upgrade, the overall contract value (excluding value added tax) has been increased by approximately US$20 million to more than US$470 million.
“Sinovel has ascended to the top of China’s rapidly growing wind industry and continues to increase its market share and backlog,” said Greg Yurek, founder and chief executive officer of AMSC. “This acceleration of shipments to Sinovel was necessitated by recent wind turbine orders received by them for new large-scale wind farms in China. We anticipate that Sinovel will continue to grow rapidly throughout the next decade, which we expect will give rise to new orders for our core electrical components for 2011 and beyond.”
AMSC’s wind turbine electrical systems and core electrical components include the company's proprietary PowerModule power converters. They enable reliable, high-performance wind turbine operation by controlling power flows, regulating voltage, monitoring system performance and controlling the pitch of wind turbine blades to maximize efficiency.
At the end of calendar year 2008, China had an installed wind power capacity of approximately 12 gigawatts (GW). In a recently released report, the Chinese Wind Energy Association cited “conservative” and “positive” targets for China’s future wind power installations. The report’s conservative wind power capacity target for 2020 was 108 GW and its positive target for 2020 was 132 GW. According to a forecast by the Global Wind Energy Council, China will surpass the United States to become the largest growth market for wind power generating capacity in 2009.
This contract amendment will be discussed further on AMSC’s first quarter fiscal year 2009 conference call with investors beginning at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time on July 30. Those who wish to listen to the live conference call webcast should visit the “Investors” section of the company’s website at www.amsc.com/investors. The live call also can be accessed by dialing 913-312-0732 and using conference ID 6994113. A telephonic playback of the call will be available from 1:00 p.m. ET on July 30, 2009 through 1:00 p.m. ET on August 6, 2009. Please call 888-203-1112 and refer to conference ID 6994113 to access the playback.