Suzlon CEO Tulsi Tanti and his team confirmed in a meeting in London this week that the Indian company plans to partner with Chinese utilities in the Brazilian wind market. As Tanti pointed out, Suzlon has a Chinese manufacturing base and its Chinese subsidiary is considered to be a domestic Chinese company – and it has strong relationships with domestic Chinese utilities. Chinese utilities wish to expand into the Brazilian energy market and Suzlon – rather than Sinovel or Goldwind (at least for now) – is positioning itself as the partner of choice.

Suzlon turbines are tried and tested in Brazil, where the Indian manufacturer claims to have a market share of over one third of the installed base of generating capacity (it has installed close to 400 MW of turbine capacity). Suzlon recently decided to join turbine manufacturers such as GE, Impsa and Wobben (a subsidiary of Enercon) and establish a manufacturing base in Brazil, having previously imported equipment. The company has been active in Brazil since 2008 and established a domestic operations and maintenance base in Fortaleza, Ceará, in 2010 – where it is now gearing up to manufacture blades.

Suzlon expects wind power to represent 20% of Brazilian electricity supply by 2020  - a more optimistic forecast than the official Brazilian Government target. The company plans to install 1 GW of capacity in Brazil by 2013. From this year Suzlon is selling its S95 and S97 machines into the Brazilian market, in addition to its S88 turbine.