Source: Energy & Management Powernews, 08. August 2022
Is there a new wind turbine manufacturer now of all times? Into the market master data register is namely a "Max-Wyn GmbH" registered. The answer: no.
In the market master data register, the Federal Network Agency records all electricity and gas producers and large consumers. In May and June, seven wind turbines of a previously unknown "manufacturer of wind turbines" called "Max-Wyn GmbH" have been entered in it.
The Fachagentur Windenergie an Land (FA Wind) pointed this out these days in its Zubaubericht for the first half of 2022. It concerns with Max Wyn a society of the Bavarian building group Max Bögl AG. Business purpose according to the commercial register: "Marketing of wind turbines, - project planning and construction of wind power projects at home and abroad, - as well as all related businesses".
Bögl is so far known in the wind power sector only as a tower manufacturer. Should the family-owned company, for instance, now produce entire wind turbines - at a time when most wind turbine producers in Europe are deep in the red and would then, on top of that, turn from partners into competitors?
The connection to Senvion
Jürgen Joos, commercial director (CFO) wind at Max Bögl, denied it. He confirmed information that the seven 3.2-MW turbines with 93-m hub heights, 114-m rotor diameters, converters from ABB and the Max Wyn type designation "3.4M114" belong to a pool of ten turbines that Bögl bought up from Senvion's insolvency estate. The type designation was the same there.
Senvion had gone bankrupt in April 2019. The sale of the ten fully assembled turbines to Bögl was then, according to Joos, initiated by co-liquidator Micha Schulz. Bögl was concerned with the acquisition of the windmills and the establishment of Max-Wyn at the beginning of 2021 to minimize its own damage from the Senvion bankruptcy, by which it was "massively affected."
After all, Bögl was already building wind towers at the time and had unspecified delivery obligations from ongoing projects with Senvion turbines. He added that Max-Wyn was a "finite business." Bögl had no plans to buy further turbines or intellectual property from Senvion. This is "fundamentally impossible," he said. Already in the fall of 2019, Siemens Gamesa had bought Senvion's intellectual property, service business and a rotor blade manufacturing facility in Portugal.
Wind farm approved shortly before bankruptcy
Anyway, the wind farm "Farve Wind" near Wangels in Ostholstein was missing exactly seven of these "3.4M114" due to the Senvion bankruptcy. On the type it had received the immission protection-legal permission seven times in the month before. Why the wind farm then only began to generate green electricity more than three years later and appeared in the market master data register remains open for the time being: The operator did not want to be quoted by our editorial team. It concerns a local advisor and coach.
The bought up windmills could be set up however by no means, as Jürgen Joos remembers, 1:1. Rather, they were originally designed for the North American market: 60 Hz instead of 50 Hz, different climate zone. Bögl, or rather Max-Wyn, managed the conversions not least with the help of a recruited former production manager from Senvion. Irony of history: the ten nacelles are not on Bögl special concrete towers, but on steel towers from another manufacturer.
What happens to the rest
And the other three "3.4M114" that are still in stock? According to Joos, they are equally counted off and are to form the "Adlerhorst" wind farm in Ahrensviöl in the same state of Schleswig-Holstein from spring 2023.
Author: Georg Eble
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