China's Goldwind is close to announcing an agreement to buy a GE wind turbine factory in Bahia, taking advantage of the American company's decision to abandon local production of the equipment, sources said.

Goldwind, which led the world turbine market in 2022, overtaking Denmark's Vestas and GE itself, sees the acquisition as a way of speeding up its production in Brazil, "reducing the time needed to build a new plant from scratch", according to one of the sources.

With a local factory, Goldwind will be able to sell wind turbines financed by development banks such as BNDES, potentially increasing competition for other suppliers vying for the Brazilian market, including Vestas, Siemens-Gamesa, Nordex-Acciona and local WEG.

(Source: FL Journal, March 25)