Sep 29, 2006, 3:05 GMT
Singapore - Vestas Wind Systems, the world's top wind turbine maker, plans to establish a research base in Singapore to meet Asia's growing appetite for clean, cheap and inexhaustible energy supplies, an executive said in local media on Friday.
The Denmark-based company will invest up to 500 million Singapore dollars (322 million US dollars) over the next 10 years to set up the wind technology research and development centre, said Thorbjorn Rasmussen, Vestas Asia Pacific president.
'Vestas is convinced that the future for wind energy in Asia is phenomenal,' The Straits Times quoted him as saying.
The centre will employ 150 engineers and is slated to start operations in the first half of next year.
Its objective is to develop better wind turbines, which are three- bladed towers that turn gusts into electricity.
The company, which opened its regional headquarters in Singapore on Thursday, has sales, service centres and manufacturing plants in India, China and Australia.
Of the 30,000 turbines it has sold worldwide, more than 5,000 are installed in wind farms in India, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
The company expects the number of turbines in the Asia-Pacific region to triple in the coming years.
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