The Spanish-German provider is struggling with serious quality problems.
(Photo: Reuters)
Munich Siemens Energy also wants to use external help to clear up the billion-dollar debacle surrounding the wind power subsidiary Siemens Gamesa. “You have to work it through properly,” it said in supervisory board circles. In doing so, it must also be checked: “Who knew what and when?” It must be clarified why the quality problems were not discovered in the course of the complete takeover of the Spanish subsidiary.
At the end of June, Gamesa shocked the headquarters in Munich and the investors with new bad news: Massive quality problems in some turbines could cost more than a billion euros in the coming years. The Siemens Energy share price collapsed by more than a third.
The turbines may be wrongly designed
Siemens Energy had taken over Gamesa completely in order to get better control over the company, which had been making losses for years. As part of the deal, there was a so-called due diligence, i.e. a thorough examination of the books and the economic and legal risks.
“This is a very serious situation,” it said in supervisory board circles. It was particularly problematic that the possible burdens had to be published without being able to precisely name the cause and the maximum damage. A crucial question is whether the design of the affected turbines is defective or whether it is just an implementation problem.
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The Siemens Energy Supervisory Board has now set up a special committee. The board should be headed by Vice-Supervisory Board Hubert Lienhard. In addition, there is a task force in the company that also includes experienced reorganizers from other divisions. In addition, technical experts in the style of the TÜV are to be brought in. According to supervisory board circles, the design of the turbines had been certified by the technical consultant DNV, who has a lot of experience in this area.
The problem affects the wind power model series 5x and 4x. About 100 of these have been handed over to customers and hundreds more have already been built. In addition, there is a larger order backlog. With these turbines that have not yet been built, it is now unclear whether, for example, the design or the components have to be changed and how many problems can be expected.
Nobody knows how many turbines will be affected
On the one hand, it was emphasized in supervisory board circles that only a very small part of the installed fleet of 63,000 wind turbines was affected. And most of the bikes also run trouble-free under the models of the 4x and 5x series. However, the group lacks a sufficient database to be able to estimate how many systems could cause problems in the future.
The management around Siemens Energy boss Christian Bruch and Gamesa CEO Jochen Eickholt continues to enjoy the trust of the supervisory board. People around the control committee said they had checked personnel issues and came to the conclusion: “Bruch and Eickholt are the right people to solve the problem.” Of course, you have to wait and see what the investigations reveal.
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