Moventas Turns a Deep Technical Know-how into Cleantech Products of the Future
Moventas, a company awarded for its international success and cleantech expertise, is doing demanding work with the design and production of wind turbine gearboxes. The company's customers include significant, international manufacturers of wind turbines and electric utilities, and the demand for Moventas's products is high around the world. The company is now making an investment of 17 million euros in Jyväskylä to increase its production capacity, enabling it to respond to the growing demand and create new jobs in the region.
Moventas, a manufacturer of wind turbine gearboxes from Jyväskylä, is one of the few companies that can combine the production of massive products and high-precision equipment with serial production. The management of macro and micro geometry is challenging, and it requires special expertise and extensive knowledge of various fields of engineering design.
– In order to provide our customers with more and more competitive products and to secure the growth of our company, we are doing continuous research to develop our spearhead technologies. We make the technological innovations born from this process a part of our customers's product design projects in an agile manner, says Jyrki Virtanen, Moventas's Chief Technological Officer.
The next generation Exceed series is an example of a new technological innovation and product platform. The production of the series was started in the mid 2010s, and it has 20% higher torque density compared to its predecessors. The model is also 10% smaller than the preceding ones, reducing the life cycle costs of wind turbines. This plays a key role when considering alternative energy production models.
– The design challenge is connecting everything together. There are thousands of alternatives, and we have to find the most optimal one. We have built our own virtual design environment for this, where we can simulate the mathematical model before any of the parts physically exist, says Virtanen.
There is no direct training program for this industry in Finland. If anything, Moventas acts as the school for the industry, with its roots dating back to the State Artillery Factory, established in 1938 in Rautpohja, Jyväskylä, and subsequently to Valmet Power Transmission. The State Artillery Factory initially manufactured gear transmission systems for artillery guns' guidance systems, and later on, Valmet Power
Transmission produced heavy industry transmission systems for tractors, locomotives and paper machines. The long-standing and demanding production of marine gears served as a good foundation when creating the design expertise for wind turbine gearboxes.
Today, Moventas focuses solely on the design, production and maintenance of gearboxes for wind turbines.
The company is confident about the future, where wind power will play a major part when considering all of the energy produced. Moventas is competing with world-leading equipment manufacturers in its narrow special field.
– Our challenges and opportunities lie in how we can turn our long technical history into products of the future. We have to look at least five years ahead on the market. We are actively following the development of the scientific community and the market, so that we can act as pioneers with our solutions, says Virtanen. The key to Moventas's success is innovation, based on the know-how of the top experts of the field, hard research work and the passion to create something new.
Moventas Oy
+358 20 184 7000
service@moventas.com
www.moventas.com
Established: 2005
Field: Production of wind turbine gearboxes
“Technology expert in renewable energy”