Germany-based Eickhoff Wind Asia, a 100 per cent subsidiary of family-owned company Gebr Eickhoff Maschinenfabrik u. Eisengießerei GmbH, has opened its new manufacturing facility near Chennai.
Eickhoff Wind Asia is part of the Eickhoff Wind division of the Eickhoff group. It supplies gearboxes for wind turbines as well as industrial applications and offers customised service concepts.
The new assembly facility for wind gearboxes strengthens Eickhoff’s geographical footprint in Asia. The core functions of the new factory include assembly, storage, and testing of the gearboxes up to a size of 8 MW.
‘A corporate milestone’
In the first stage of the expansion, which has now been completed, up to 900 gearboxes per year will be assembled, with plans to ramp up to 1,500 gearboxes per year in the second stage. “With the new assembly plant in India, we have now reached a central corporate milestone in a very important growth market. With the plant in Chennai, we can serve the dynamic growth market of wind power even better and grow locally in India together with our customers. Our planned expansion stages will enable us to expand our supply and provide international assembly at a very high level,“ said Dr Ulf Achenbach, CEO of Eickhoff.
The company has signed an MoU with theTamil Nadu government to invest ₹640 crore in India. The group plans to employ about 700 people directly and indirectly with this investment.
The available manufacturing capacity in Germany allows the construction of gearboxes of up to 3 GW p.a. With the new plant in India, this capacity will double in the first expansion stage itself.