Subcontractors and Component Suppliers in the Swedish Wind Power Industry – report No 42

Titel: Subcontractors and Component Suppliers in the Swedish Wind Power Industry – report No 42
Författare:
Linn Takeuchi
Utgivare:
Lunds universitet – Department of Technology and Society
Årtal:
2003
Ämnesord: Samhällsekonomi
Rapport via Lunds Tekniska Högskola (Pdf)


Sammanfattning: This paper studies the Swedish component suppliers in the wind power industry. This group has not received much attention so far, and today very little is known. This study addresses the fact that the Swedish component suppliers have not been able to penetrate the wind power market despite the Swedish industry’s strength in mechanical and electrical engineering. The aims of this paper were to gather information regarding the existing production and to identify factors that affect the Swedish component suppliers’ scope to penetrate the wind turbine market. To date, although Sweden has spent considerable amounts of money on projects involving wind turbines, there is no series production of large wind turbines in Sweden. The historical development of the wind turbine industry suggests this alone would have inhibited the development of component production in Sweden. Yet, the country’s proximity and good access to large wind turbine producing countries should be an advantage. Various factors and issues are identified and discussed in this paper that are relevant for the Swedish component suppliers’ scope to penetrate the wind turbine market. These include market and product development, buyer-supplier relationships, export and sourcing behaviors, and time of market entry. This is a first step towards increasing the knowledge of Swedish component production and it is recognized that more studies are required. Various areas where relevant knowledge is largely missing or scarce are identified and discussed as well, and should serve as relevant starting points for continued research.