This new business will create 600 jobs in the company’s Voith Hydro group division.
Orders include a €120 contract for generators and turbines for one China's largest hydro-electric power plants on the Jinsha River and contracts for two hydro power plants in Colombia and Brazil. Voith will also supply turbines for three power plants on the Rio Miño in Spain, and modernize the Pernegg power station on the Mur River in Austria.
The market for hydro power stations is driven by climate change, which boosts the demand for technologies providing CO2-free power generation, the company says. Today, hydro power is the only renewable energy resource that can generate power in large quantities, sufficient enough for running large industrial plants such as steel mills.
Another growth factor for hydro power is the rapidly increasing share of wind energy in electric grids. Power fluctuations caused by varying wind speeds have to be quickly and reliably compensated by suitable backup capacities. With pumped storage plants, hydro power offers a reliable, proven and CO2-free technology that makes it possible to store power in large quantities that can be instantly fed into the grid, in order to offset power fluctuations from these intermittent technologies.