Nordex

What they do

Nordex designs, manufactures, installs and services onshore wind turbines. Its current focus is on large machines in the four to seven megawatt class, with long rotor blades and tall towers designed to extract more energy from moderate wind sites. Beyond turbine sales, a substantial part of its business is long-term service contracts that keep installed fleets running for decades.

Why it matters

Onshore wind is the backbone of Germany's energy transition and a growing source of power across Europe. While several Western turbine makers have struggled with costs and quality problems, Nordex has concentrated on onshore turbines rather than spreading into offshore, which has made it one of the key suppliers for European wind farm developers. Its order books from Germany, Spain, France and other European markets give it a central role in meeting national expansion targets.

The company's Delta4000 platform underpins its current range, and successive variants have increased rotor diameters and output to lower the cost of electricity at each site. For buyers who want European-built turbines as an alternative to Chinese suppliers, Nordex is one of the few options of scale.

Products to know

• Delta4000: the turbine platform behind its current product range.
• N163/5.X: a turbine with a 163-metre rotor for a wide range of wind conditions.
• N175/6.X: its largest onshore turbine, with a 175-metre rotor.

The German angle

Nordex was founded in 1985 in Give, Denmark, and later moved to Germany, where it became a fixture of the northern wind industry. Its management and central functions are in Hamburg, while the legal entity is registered in Rostock, which is also home to a major production site. The 2016 merger with Acciona Windpower brought in Spanish technology and made the Spanish group Acciona its anchor shareholder. Listed on the MDAX and TecDAX, Nordex remains one of the main German names in the global wind industry and a significant industrial employer on the Baltic coast.