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As a child, Henrik Andersen would look out of his window in Jutland, Denmark\u2019s windswept western peninsula, and watch the distant wind turbines turn. \u201cI was desperate to understand how they worked,\u201d he recalls. The blades were smaller then, the towers shorter, the whole apparatus closer to a windmill than the hulking machines erected today\u2014the tallest of which exceed 300 meters, with rotor blades longer than a football field.<\/p>\n
As a young man, Andersen bought shares in the wind turbine company that he once watched out his window. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t all that successful in the earlier years,\u201d he says, then chuckles dryly. <\/p>\n
That company was Vestas. It\u2019s now the world\u2019s largest wind turbine manufacturer by cumulative installations\u2014more than 204 GW in 88 countries, the most of any supplier\u2014and the boy who once stood at a window trying to work out how the blades turned would, decades later, become the man running it.<\/p>\n
When Andersen first took his seat on the board in 2013, the Danish manufacturer was, in its own chairman\u2019s words, at a \u201chistoric low.\u201d Vestas\u2019s losses had increased almost sixfold from \u20ac166 million ($190 million) in 2011 to \u20ac963 million ($1.1 billion). Andersen was not an engineer by training; his background was in the Danish banking and facilities management sectors. He was appointed to the Vestas board to bring financial discipline, and in the months that followed, he helped cut costs by \u20ac484 million ($554 million) and took more of a hands-on role during the turnaround.<\/p>\n
When he was installed as CEO in 2019, Andersen says the handover barely registered: \u201cWe just got on with business.\u201d<\/p>\n
That would not be the only crisis he\u2019d have to manage. Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine disrupted steel supplies, upended supply chains, and sent costs soaring. Vestas posted a \u20ac1.57 billion ($1.8 billion) net loss that year, a figure Andersen says he reminds himself of daily.<\/p>\n
The cost of building a turbine has climbed between 30% to 40% since 2020, largely because of the price of raw materials. The cost of steel is up more than 50%, while copper and aluminum prices have nearly doubled, according to Julio Dal Poz, a managing director at FTI Consulting\u2019s energy transition practice. \u201cThat pressure is likely to worsen as AI data centers compete for the same materials the wind sector relies on,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
Against this backdrop, Vestas recently delivered one of its strongest quarters in years, with operating profit increasing to \u20ac446 million, from \u20ac57 million in the same quarter the year before. New orders rose from 2 gigawatts to 3.35 gigawatts year on year, and the company is sitting on a wind-turbine order backlog worth \u20ac36 billion.<\/p>\n
Still, Andersen is only cautiously optimistic about the future. \u201cWe are happy, but we are not there yet,\u201d he says. Nearly all of this quarter\u2019s new orders were onshore. Offshore, the more volatile side of the business, will not turn a profit in 2026. Vestas is targeting 2027 instead. <\/p>\n
A single offshore installation can cost billions and take years to permit, finance, and build before it produces a single megawatt-hour of power, so a handful of delayed or canceled projects can dramatically impact results.<\/p>\n
Andersen says these sharp swings take a heavy internal toll. The pressure and unpredictability can create widespread employee fatigue. \u201cIt tests your resilience,\u201d he admits, adding that some employees left the company after 2022 because they no longer wanted to work in such a cyclical industry. \u201cWhen you have a piece of technology that is standing 250 meters aboveground, it takes a lot of courage to build a prototype and then make it into serial production. But that courage is not always rewarded.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EU has pledged to nearly double its installed wind capacity by 2030, to 425 gigawatts, from around 246 gigawatts today. That presents a sizable potential pipeline of future business for Europe\u2019s turbine makers. But Chinese companies are also vying for a slice of the pie.<\/p>\n
Vestas, which also features on Fortune\u2019s Change the World list, has built the most turbines of any company globally. But in 2025, the five biggest turbine suppliers by annual installations were, for the first time, all Chinese, according to the Global Wind Energy Council. Goldwind, the global leader, installed nearly 30 gigawatts\u2014double that of Vestas.<\/p>\n
Gerben Hieminga, an energy economist at ING, says Chinese manufacturers can beat European prices by as much as 50%. This is mostly because of state support. Between 2005 and 2024, Chinese firms received, on average, three to eight times more government support than firms in OECD countries.<\/p>\n
The European Commission is aware of this challenge and opened a foreign subsidies investigation into Goldwind\u2019s activities in the EU wind sector in February. The EU\u2019s Net-Zero Industry Act targets 40% domestic manufacturing for clean technologies, including wind, by 2030, while a proposed Industrial Accelerator Act would add \u201cMade in EU\u201d procurement rules that could exclude Chinese suppliers.<\/p>\n
However, Maria de Kleijn, a partner in Kearney\u2019s energy practice, warns that response could backfire. \u201cA single EU-wide standard, replacing today\u2019s patchwork of national rules, might make it easier for Chinese manufacturers to plan a coherent strategy, not harder,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
For now, China\u2019s footprint on the continent remains small. Chinese manufacturers supplied less than 3% of Europe\u2019s new turbines last year, according to the Global Wind Energy Council. Vestas still holds key advantages, according to Dal Poz, including a mature supply chain, a long track record, and the confidence of lenders.<\/p>\n
Andersen predicts security concerns will ultimately keep China\u2019s turbine giants from conquering the continent. \u201cIf we were having this conversation five years ago, I\u2019d be more concerned,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we\u2019re living in a different world.\u201d Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine ended the assumption that energy infrastructure could be insulated from geopolitics. While serving as chair of WindEurope, the industry\u2019s trade body, Andersen pushed the EU to treat wind farms and grids as \u201ccritical infrastructure, not just hardware.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wind turbines are vulnerable to cyber espionage and cyberattacks, according to De Kleijn. Ming Yang, a Chinese manufacturer, has already been blocked from building a factory in Scotland on national security grounds. \u201cFive years ago, Chinese authorities barred Vestas from monitoring or running its own software on turbines. If European software isn\u2019t welcome in China, why should Chinese software and turbines be welcome in Europe\u2019s grid?\u201d Andersen asks.<\/p>\n
Europe imports more than half of the energy it consumes\u2014a dependency that Andersen says \u201ccan keep me awake at night.\u201d Europe needs to shed its \u201cnaivety,\u201d he adds, and \u201cstart protecting energy security the same way it does its borders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vestas is also adapting its own strategies to maintain its global advantage. While rivals such as Goldwind have focused on building bigger turbines, Vestas capped its offshore models at around 15 megawatts. \u201cThe longer the blade is, the more difficult it is to maneuver in a harbor. And in most harbors, we are running out of space,\u201d Andersen says. This allows Vestas to standardize its construction processes, lower costs, and reduce defects. \u201cConstant reinvention meant most industry investments barely made any profit,\u201d he adds. The strategy appears to be working: Warranty costs, a direct measure of defects reaching finished turbines, have been reduced by $3.5 million when comparing the first quarters of 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n
Andersen is also focused on making existing turbines more efficient. Vestas uses AI to correct \u201cwake steering\u201d (where one turbine robs a downstream turbine of wind speed) by adjusting blade angles to recover lost power, and to predict gearbox and generator failures before they happen. Service technicians are also getting an upgrade. Instead of climbing into a turbine with a stack of paper manuals, they will soon wear augmented reality glasses and carry handheld devices to monitor turbine data.<\/p>\n
The pursuit of greater efficiency has also been applied to the company\u2019s workforce, which has undergone recent layoffs. \u201cIt is painful, but it is also needed,\u201d Andersen says. \u201cThe goal is for this 40,000-person company to move with the speed of a much smaller one.\u201d<\/p>\n 201 gigawatts<\/p>\n Prior to Andersen\u2019s appointment, one of Vestas\u2019s core corporate principles was, \u201cFailure is not an option.\u201d However, Andersen believed the mantra bred a culture of denial. \u201cIt made the company stubborn and arrogant,\u201d he says. \u201cIf a project was failing, teams would refuse to let go.\u201d To signify the change of direction under his leadership, Andersen staged a mock funeral for the old company slogan during a leadership meeting, complete with music and a eulogy, and replaced it with a new motto: \u201cFailure is always an option.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHenrik made failure something to examine, not something to hide,\u201d says Javier Rodr\u00edguez Diez, Vestas\u2019s chief sales officer. That attention to detail, he adds, comes through in daily operations, in a crisis, and in taking care of his team. When Rodr\u00edguez Diez asked to keep his 25th anniversary of being at the company low-key, Andersen threw him a surprise reception, flying in his two children from Spain. \u201cHe does not lead from a distance,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez Diez says. \u201cHe cares about the details.\u201d<\/p>\n Andersen sees energy storage, which would allow for continual energy supply even when the wind isn\u2019t blowing, as the wind sector\u2019s next big opportunity. It\u2019s not a business Vestas itself plans to enter\u2014Andersen has ruled out becoming a battery manufacturer\u2014but he views it as a critical improvement to how much value wind power can deliver.<\/p>\n The stakes go beyond any single company. Europe\u2019s ability to meet rising electricity demand, including the power needed to operate AI data centers, Andersen notes, depends on solving its energy dependency problem. \u201cIf we can\u2019t build the data centers, we will lose out on the battle of AI,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n What Europe does with the power it generates\u2014and how much of its energy supply it can control\u2014will be the next big test.<\/p>\n This article appears in the October\/November 2026 issue of <\/em>Fortune with the headline \u201cVestas battles changing winds<\/em>.\u201c<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Europe #shed #naivety #Vestas #CEO #Henrik #Andersen #Chinese #competition #energy #issue #night<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a child, Henrik Andersen wo… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9311,283,173,657,2532,424,4676,1939,9310,3858,1126,9308,2120,3604,9309,9307],"class_list":["post-6197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-andersen","tag-ceo","tag-china","tag-chinese","tag-competition","tag-energy","tag-energy-industry","tag-europe","tag-henrik","tag-issue","tag-londonarticles","tag-naivety","tag-night","tag-shed","tag-vestas","tag-vestas-wind-systems"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
Vestas is the first wind turbine<\/strong> manufacturer to surpass 200 gigawatts<\/strong> of cumulative turbine capacity globally.<\/strong><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n