Accelerated production of wind turbines for Chinese market

American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) today announced it has received a follow-on order for $10m worth of wind turbine core electrical components from China's CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Research Institute Co. CSR-Zelri will use the components in the 1.65 MW wind turbines designed by AMSC's wholly-owned AMSC Windtec subsidiary.

Based in the Hunan province of China, CSR-Zelri is a subsidiary of China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corp. (CSR), China's largest railway equipment and associated power systems manufacturer. CSR-Zelri licensed its 1.65 MW wind turbine design from AMSC Windtec in January 2007. This is the largest order AMSC has received from CSR-ZELRI. To date, CSR-Zelri has ordered more than $20m of core electrical components from AMSC.

CSR-Zelri installed its first 1.65 MW prototype in Jianghua, located in China's Hunan Province in November 2007, less than 10 months after engaging AMSC Windtec. The company entered series production of the 1.65 MW turbines in mid-2008.

By the end of 2008, China had a total installed wind power capacity of 12.2 gigawatts (GW) making it the fourth largest wind power market in the world. In its June 2009 report, industry research firm Emerging Energy Research projected China's wind power installed base would exceed 200 GW by 2020.

AMSC's wind turbine electrical control systems and core electrical components include the company's proprietary PowerModule power converters, pitch and yaw converters, SCADA systems and other power electronics. They enable reliable, high-performance wind turbine operation by controlling power flows, regulating voltage, monitoring system performance, controlling the pitch of wind turbine blades and the yaw of the turbines to maximize efficiency.