October 07, 2008

Dillinger upbeat on plate demand from wind energy sector in Europe

Platts cited a spokesperson of German steelmaker Dillinger Huettenwerke as saying that the climate change proposals made recently by the European Commission will lead to higher demand for wind energy and consequently for wind turbine steel.

He said that "The measures will encourage the political direction taken by the major European countries to accelerate the adoption of wind energy. Naturally, this will mean more business for us."

He added that demand for steel plate for wind turbine towers was already high prior to Wednesday's announcements, forcing steelmakers to allocate increasing proportions of their stock to this sector. We have fully scheduled the volumes of steel for these wind energy projects into 2009. We are having to move away from other sectors in order to accommodate for this demand.

He said that “Wind turbines typically use steel plates of thickness between 15mm to 40mm thick of a grade S355 or S375, but research to develop lighter and more resistant steels is ongoing. We are looking to phase out S355 grades in favour of S420 grades, which would reduce weight considerably. However there are still fatigue resistance problems with the product.”