Denmark, October 2009
The question is not whether Gaia Wind will increase their sales of household small wind turbines next year. The question is how much it will increase by, will it double or treble.
The Danish wind turbine manufacturer is a classical example of the many up and coming CleanTech companies that have huge growth potential, because they work with solutions to the global challenges in environment, climate and energy.
Gaia-Wind has recently been designated by American authorities as one of the world’s best small wind turbines. This recognition gives the company the confidence and belief that they may enter a significant niche market of small wind turbines for farms and rural properties.
“We are a long way from the top of the global list of the biggest manufacturers, but we have the best product. Therefore the goal is to become one of the world’s top 5 in small wind turbines” says Hans Ole Lørup, General Manager of Gaia-Wind in Denmark.
Three years ago, the company had two employees, the technology and lots of ideas. Today, there are 6 employees in Denmark and 12 in Scotland. Furthermore, the company keeps many people working at partner companies which assemble, install and maintain the wind turbines. The wind turbine produce 11 kilowatts of power, yielding an amount of energy equal to approximately one year’s total energy use for an average family of four.
Because of the poor prices for small wind turbine electricity in Denmark Gaia-Wind has focused on exports. An obvious choice is the UK market, where the British government recently decided to pay almost 3 Danish kroner per kilowatthour, while only 0.6 kroner is paid in Denmark. Ireland, the USA and Italy may also soon be looking at the Danish small wind turbines.
Gaia-Wind already has a full pipeline of wind turbine sales well into 2010, so the question now is whether they should increase manufacturing to 120 or 160 wind turbines next year.
“This is a decision about how much we can manage without compromising on the quality. We would not want to get in a situation where we had to go around stopping wind turbines” says Hans Ole Lørup.